2026Publication
[Gubernatorial Transportation Playbook] (Forthcoming, TBD)
Clean RIDES Network
A roadmap to transportation leadership for new governors and their policy teams.
Portfolio
Writing, speaking, research.
Selected work on transportation, climate, public investment, and the choices that shape how people move.
2026Panel and Podcast
The Intersection of Climate and Housing Policies
Capitol Weekly
A live-recorded conference panel on housing and climate policy and coalition dynamics, especially in California.
2024Writing
California Is Walking—Now Time to Run Toward Reconnecting Communities
NRDC
Using public investment to repair harm and reduce pollution in communities divided by highways.
2024Blog
Investing in Clean Air for California
NRDC (with Ali Lehman)
The case for redesigning California's most harmful transportation investment program into cleaner air for most-impacted communities.
2024Print Interview
What Pausing Congestion Pricing Means for Climate
Yale Climate Connections
Discussing the stakes of New York's traffic elimination program implementation for the rest of the U.S.
2023Blog
Want to Save the Planet? Save the Bus
NRDC (with Zack Deutsch-Gross)
The case for the humble work horse of the transportation system to be given its due in the climate discourse.
2023Expert Testimony
California Transportation Infrastructure Testimony
California State Senate
My testimony for how states could best leverage the Biden Infrastructure Law dollars to advance climate and other policy priorities.
2022Blog
New Guidance for City Leaders on Parking & Mobility Choices
NRDC
Blog summarizing policy momentum and synthesis best practice guide whose development I initiated and oversaw.
2021Blog
Saint Paul Prioritizes People, Not Parking Spaces
NRDC
Celebrating a win I supported in Saint Paul, including via an excellent piece of policy communications developed by Nelson\Nygaard (linked from the post).
2020Report
Derailed
TransitCenter
My case study write-up of lessons learned from the 2018 failure of Nashville's ambitious transit plan at the ballot.
2020Media
Why Did Nashville’s 2018 Transit Plan Fail? New Report Dishes Out Sharp Criticisms.
WPLN News – Nashville Public Radio
An interviewee for the report covers the report—very meta.
2019Blog
Bike Routes in Name Only
Walk Bike Nashville
Calling for safe infrastructure—and data that honestly reflect the safety (or danger) of existing infrastructure—grounded in first-person experience navigating Nashville by bicycle.
2019Podcast
One Year Later, a Transit Referendum Postmortem
Nashville Sounding Board
An interview discussing my Nashville ballot measure referendum.
2018Podcast
Food Demand with Amanda Hong and Zak Accuardi
The Drawdown Agenda
An interview discussing my analysis for Project Drawdown, estimating the (perhaps surprisingly large) climate benefits of food waste reduction and adopting plant-rich diets.
2018Writing
Title VI Is Broken. Here’s How Transit Leaders Can Fix It.
Next City
An exploration of the limits of transit agencies’ Title VI compliance practices in truly advancing equity—and ways to make them more effective in honoring the spirit (rather than merely following the letter) of federal law.
2018Writing
The Stark and Hopeful Facts About Bus Ridership
Bloomberg CityLab
My analysis of declining American bus ridership in the 2010s, and solutions suggested by existing evidence for local leaders seeking to reverse the trend.
2018Media
Falling Transit Ridership Poses an ‘Emergency’ for Cities, Experts Fear
The Washington Post
An exclusive covering my analysis of pre-pandemic transit ridership declines and the urgency to improve service as a path to turn things around.
2017Media
How Much Time Was Spent on the Subway? M.T.A. Can Now Tell You.
The New York Times
Zak Accuardi, a senior program analyst with the Transit Center, a research organization, has suggested that the M.T.A. measure performance using a tool used in London called excess journey time. “The A Line has a 12-month weekday wait assessment of 71.9 percent, but what does that mean for riders?” Mr. Accuardi wrote to board members this summer. “Wait assessment is indifferent to how late a train is or how many riders are affected by its lateness.”
2016Media
3 Tips for a Hot, Sexy, Long-Lasting Relationship With a Private Mobility Company
WIRED
Tantilizingly-titled coverage of my work on public agency partnerships with new mobility services.
2016Blog
Memo to MTA Board: You’re Measuring Performance Wrong. Here’s What to Do Instead.
TransitCenter
My [ultimately successful] case for New York’s transit system to use people-centered subway performance metrics.
2016Print Interview
How Is Your Diet Affecting Climate Change?
Street Roots
An interview on dietary choices, food systems, and reducing climate pollution.
2018Report
Inclusive Transit
TransitCenter
Among the first national policy reports for transit agencies endeavoring to equitably serve their constituents.
2015Writing
What’s the Best Way to Bring Electricity to Everyone?
World Economic Forum
An argument for a place-based approach to universal electricity access.
2014Thesis
Resource use in the Chinese Building Sector
MIT
2014 "Best thesis" in the Technology and Policy Program—a mixed-methods analysis of the resource consumption driven by urban development typologies across Chinese provinces.