RAND Corporation / University of California
Martin Wachs is Adjunct Principal Researcher at the RAND Corporation. He is also a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering and of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley where he directed the Institute of Transportation Studies and the University of California Transportation Center. He spent 25 years at UCLA, 11 years of which he was the Chair of the Department of Urban Planning.
State gas tax turns into political football State Senator Josh Newman was recalled over his “yes” vote on raising the state gas tax. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is hoping an initiative to repeal that gas tax hike will draw more Republicans to the polls in November, to support endangered Congressional candidates. We talk about the politics of the tax, and what the tax actually does.
Measure M puts LA at the forefront of public transit funding On Nov. 8 voters will see Measure M on the ballot, an initiative that aims to raise $120 billion over the next 40 years to help fund mass transit expansions. Voters in more than two dozen other metro areas -- like San Francisco, Seattle and Atlanta -- are considering similar transit funding measures.
California's infrastructure: crumbling California's infrastructure is crumbling with a backlog of repairs estimated at $130 billion. Why has the state fallen so far behind when it's one of the top economies in the world?
Rush Hour Construction Los Angeles has tried to reduce traffic congestion by banning construction on major roads during rush-hour. But in today’s L.A. Times , Jim Newton writes that that ban is costing the city millions of dollars a year. We talk about why that is, and whether L.A. still has traditional “rush hours” anymore.
Transportation Mysteries Last week, Governor Brown lifted a ban on light rail in the San Fernando Valley. But why was it banned in the first place? We get the answer to that and other transportation mysteries around Southern California.
No Solution to Traffic? The LA 2020 report says continued emphasis on rail in the city will do nothing to mitigate traffic gridlock in this city. Why not? Is there no solution? We talk to a traffic expert who says things aren't so bad.
Stuck in Traffic, Is There Any Way Out? Since the end of World War II, public transit has been a hard sell in California. Ronald Reagan famously said that the automobile made us free. But don’t tell that to commuters stuck longer and longer in cars that are burning up gasoline at the rate of 4 dollars a gallon.
George Saunders: Lincoln in the Bardo (Part I) Lincoln in the Bardo dramatizes a grieving President Lincoln as he visits the grave of his beloved son Willie, who died at age eleven. In the novel, the buried dead believe they're not dead -- "they're sick and refer to their coffins as "sick boxes."
Hua Hsu: A Floating Chinaman Author Hua Hsu stops by to discuss his book A Floating Chinaman, recounting the life of 1930's actor/writer H.T. Tsiang and his struggles entering the American literary world.
In 'Speechless,' Scott Silveri combines comedy, family & disability Scott Silveri has written and produced sitcoms for more than 20 years. In all that time, he never encountered a TV family that looked anything like the one he grew up in -- with a mom, a dad...and a brother with cerebral palsy. He changed that with his show Speechless on ABC. Silveri tells us about looking to his own past for stories, and why he was determined to make a family comedy and not just a "disability show."