The Infrastructure Technology Podcast hosts its first infrastructure draft this episode. Gavin, Brandon, Jessica and Noah take turns building their ideal U.S. city, drafting locations across categories, including urban streets, buses, bridges, metro systems, highways, bike networks and more.

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56:36

Here is a transcript from the episode:

GJ: Welcome to the Infrastructure Technology Podcast. I'm Gavin Jenkins, head of content at Roads and Bridges. And with me, we have a full studio, Zoom studio that is. We have Brandon Lewis, associate editor of Mass Transit. We got Jessica Parks. She is a staff writer at Roads and Bridges, and we have Noah Kolenda on the horn, associate editor of Mass Transit. So if Noah's here, you know it's a special episode. So today we are going to be doing our first ever draft. This is the infrastructure draft. Are you three excited for this?

JP: Oh yeah.

BL: Oh, I am so excited guys. It's not only Tuesday. It's not only a podcast day, but we are leveling up. We are now in the video era.

GJ: Yes. We are recording this as a video and so we hope you're watching this on YouTube. And so you get to see our pretty faces. You also get to listen to us if you're listening on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Now let's get to the infrastructure draft. First off, I'd just like to say that this is an homage draft to a very silly podcast that I listen to. I shouldn't call it silly. Sometimes it's silly, sometimes very serious. It's called The Big Picture. It's a movie podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. It's hosted by Sean Fennessy and Amanda Dobbins. I adore that show. I listen to it all the time, and they have movie drafts where they take different themes, and they draft movies around that theme. It's usually a year. One of the best episodes is the Tom Cruise movie draft. It was very fun. Anyway, all of that goes right over Brandon's head since he doesn't watch movies. 

JP: I love Amanda Dobbins.

GJ: You love Amanda?

JP: Yeah. She goes on one of the podcasts I listen to sometimes, which it’s called The Fashion. It's some fashion podcast that I listen to, and she goes on there.

GJ: Amanda Dobbins is an icon, and she is honestly one of the best podcasters in the business.

JP: She's great. Yeah, she's great. 

GJ: She’s the best, and her husband is an incredible writer for GQ, if you have a subscription to GQ. Okay, the infrastructure draft. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to have a snake draft where the person at the turn gets two picks, and we are going to be picking from categories. So the categories are urban streets, bus transit, bridges, metro subway system, highways, bike network and wildcard. Wildcard can be whatever you want. It can be water ferries, trolleys, freight rail systems, sidewalks, airports, water systems, parking, whatever you want for the wildcard. But what we're going to be doing is we're drafting cities from the United States of America, and we're choosing those cities based on the category of infrastructure, and you can go in any order. So let's just say your first pick is urban streets, and you go New York City right out of the gate. So then if you do that, no one can pick New York City in any of the other categories. Now, how are we going to pick the order? I have here my Carhartt hat. I hope you can hear this rattle. Those are pieces of paper with all of our names on it, and we get to see who goes first. I'm going around and around. And the first name is? My own name. I have the first pick. This is not rigged. You can see on the video, I'm picking out of the hat above my head. With the second pick of the infrastructure draft, Brandon Lewis will have the second pick. All right. Who gets three? Who gets the turn? All right. With the fourth pick or third pick, I'm sorry, Noah gets three. Jess, you have the turn. That means when Jess, when it comes to you, you get two picks. All right. And then when it comes back to me, I get two picks at the other set.

BL: I would argue that Noah has the best draft position.

GJ: You think Noah has the best?

BL: I would argue that because while getting back to back picks is great, you're also waiting a while while other picks are going on, where I feel like third is sort of right in that sweet spot where you're sort of in the same position every time.

JP: No, I think I have the best lineup. Thank you.

GJ: Okay. Are you ready? 

BL: I'm ready.

GJ: All right. With the first pick of the ITP infrastructure draft, I will be taking in the category of bridges, the city of Pittsburgh.

BL: Oh, of course you are.

GJ: Yes. The city of Pittsburgh, my home. it's the city of bridges for a reason. We have the most bridges of any city in the world with 446 bridges, and of those cities or of those bridges, we have the Three Sisters Bridges. We have the Smithfield Street Bridge. We have the Double Deck Fort Pitt Bridge. They are all iconic. The three Sisters Bridges, of course, the Roberto Clemente Bridge, the Andy Warhol Bridge, the Rachel Carson Bridge. The Smithfield Street Bridge is the city's oldest in-service bridge. It opened in 1883, and it features a rare lenticular truss design, which many people think is very beautiful, including me. We have the Fort Duquesne Bridge. Here are some fast facts. Color scheme. Many downtown bridges are painted as tech gold to match the city's official black and gold theme. We have a design variety. The city showcases suspension, cantilever, lenticular truss and bow string arch bridges, and it is managed by the city of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. It is the City of Bridges, and it is the top pick. Were any of you planning to steal that from me if you had the chance? 

JP: No. Not for bridges because I knew you were going to pick it.

BL: Not for bridges, no.

GJ: Oh, well, okay. I was terrified. I was terrified that if I didn't take that with my first pick, that one of you guys is going to take it off the board. Now Pittsburgh, off the board. Can't pick it anywhere else. Brandon, you have the next pick.

BL: Well, unlike Gavin, I'm not going to my hometown. I am going in the category of highways to start it off, and I am taking the city of Houston, Texas.

JP: Interesting. It's out of left field. Let's hear it.

BL: And I am taking the part of I-10. Now, this highway pretty much stretches across a lot of the US, but it is the major highway for Houston. And actually over one-third of the I-10 total length is within the state of Texas. So that is my reason for taking the I-10 to start things off.

GJ: Excellent choice. Make sure you guys, this is a little programming note for the team. Make sure you're writing down your picks and at the end we'll recap who has what.

BL: Okay.

GJ: And then of course, to the listeners, what we'll do is we're going to post our choices online, and we want our listeners. You guys are scrambling to find pens and paper right now. It is so funny. Jess, things are moving. Jess is like, ‘Hold on, let me rearrange things.’

JP: I needed my trustee notepad. 

BL: It's called a tab on your computer.

GJ: And so we'll have people get to vote who has basically the best city built. You're just now getting the idea of the draft, Noah.

NK: I didn't realize you were going to post it at the end and get people to vote.

GJ: Yeah, each of us is building a city.

NK: Okay. I see you.

GJ: And I’m automatically in the lead because I have the best city.

BL: Stop the count.

GJ: All right, Noah, you're up with a pick.

NK: Okay. Brandon, I have to say thank you so much for starting at highways. I really appreciate that because you left me safe and open for my choice, and this might be a little bit of a surprise considering I live in New York City. However, my first pick is going to be for metro/subway, and I will be taking the Washington, D.C., Metro system.

GJ: Wow.

NK: She just is that girl. If we're being honest, the stations are beautiful. The trains are very modern and run on a great control system. There's cellular throughout the whole system. They've got their fare collection upgrades in place, so you can pay with a regular card. They've done faregate upgrades. It's really well lit and well-designed. The wayfinding is excellent. I genuinely cannot think of a better metro system in the U.S., short of the MTA for its just sheer reach, but Washington, D.C.,'s Metro system just has my heart.

GJ: I know that with that category, if we could go outside of the United States, I would've picked London in a heartbeat as number one. 

NK: Fair. 

GJ: But yes, I think that Washington, D.C., is a great choice. And so now we go to Jess. JP, you get two picks.

JP: I get two picks.

GJ: What is your first pick?

JP: Noah took my backup pick for the Metro system, so I'm going to go with my first pick for the Metro system. I chose the city of Boston. 

GJ: Oh. Why Boston?

JP: Okay. Well, first of all, it is the oldest subway system in the country. It first opened the Tremont Street Subway in 1897. It gets a lot of crap, but imagine the work that it takes to keep that system running for over 100 years. It is the subway I grew up using, and it has the best name, the T, and I mean, while I wouldn't say it provides the most coverage of any subway system, I just think it is a really manageable subway system. It gets a job done. It gets you where you need to go. It hits the hot spots. I just think it's one of those last subway systems where people can just know where they're going by looking at the map. It's just not complicated. I like it. It gets people where they need to go, and I think it's got a little bit of a cute logo, so that's why I picked it. 

GJ: That's what it's all about.

JP: Yeah. I mean, it's a household name.

GJ: All right. You get a second pick. What is your second pick? We are now starting the second round.

JP: Okay. So my second pick is Seattle for bridges.

GJ: Seattle off the board with bridges. Why Seattle?

JP: Okay. I mean, it's a city that has to connect waterways, islands and neighborhoods separated by significant terrain, and due to that, you get a huge variety of bridges. You have floating bridges, which are a big thing in Seattle. It's famous for its floating bridges, including the SR 520 floating bridge and Interstate 90 floating bridge system, and that's due to the deep lake conditions making traditional bridge construction difficult, leading engineers to develop some of the world's longest floating bridges. I mean, you have every kind of bridge. You have floating bridges, suspension bridges like the Tacoma Narrows, movable bridges like the Fremont Bridge, freight and highway bridges, and it's not just for going over land. It's not to be a landmark. It's to serve a purpose. My city, you will see, is very much about serving its purpose and not just being pretty. We're going for efficiency over here, and Seattle has that down, so that's why I chose Seattle.

BL: It's a good pick, Jess. Smart pick.

GJ: Back to Noah.

NK: Oh, man. Okay. So I'm going to have to jump over to urban streets because I don't want my pick to get stolen first because I think it's just so perfect. I will be taking Salt Lake City's urban streets. I don't think I've met a better city street design because of the historical nature of the design of these streets and how they were designed for horse carriages to be able to turn around. They are so insanely wide that they can fit so much infrastructure in these streets. They can get center lane either bus platforms or rail platforms. They can host protected bike lanes. They can host side parking on either side of the streets. They can host curbside electric vehicle charging. There's just so much curb space and room to work with in Salt Lake City that I think they've just really put so much work and effort into designing really good streets.

GJ: City streets, urban streets off the board for the city of. What was the city again? Salt Lake City?

JP: The city is Salt Lake City.

GJ: Salt Lake City. All right. Honestly, I don't think that I had them on my radar for any of the picks, so I'm surprised. All right, Brandon, we're back to you.

BL: Well, a lot of my picks here since I first gone were stolen.

GJ: What was stolen? You could pipe up and get angry whenever people steal your picks.

BL: Noah and Jess took my main two subway systems, so with that in mind, I think I'm going to have to get my third option now before the city itself gets taken.

GJ: Oh, no.

BL: So with that being said, we're going to Noah's hometown, New York City. I am taking their subway system. They have recently invested in new R211 rail cars. These rail cars, they feature 58-inch wide door openings that are eight inches wider than standard door openings on existing cars. They're designed to speed up boarding and reduce the amount of time trains sit in stations. Of course, this is the city that never sleeps. This is the city that has the most transit rides, is the city that's really based off subway and traveling, so I am taking New York City's subway for my rail/metro system.

JP: Good choice.

GJ: Smart. Yeah. I am so upset right now, and it's not because I was going to pick their subway as well because also don't forget Pizza Rat. I mean, New York, Pizza Rat, just iconic. It's so cute. And also, it's the only Metro system that I've been on in the country other than Washington, D.C., so I was going to pick New York City, but you realize that now you've taken New York off the board in other capacities. I was taking New York with one of my next two picks, and it was either going to be the metro or urban streets, and you've now taken them right off the board. I just don't know what to do.

JP: Okay. I'm a little crushed.

BL: Should I fill some air time here?

GJ: I need you to rant.

JP: What's your guys' goal with your city? What are we looking for? Trying to be iconic? Are you trying to be efficient?

BL: Just good infrastructure, ability to get around, reliable transit service.

NK: I want you to get through my city and have a good experience no matter what mode of travel that you're taking, whether you're driving, you're on the Metro, you're on the bus, you're walking through the streets. I want any experience in my city to be just as pleasurable as the next.

JP: I wonder how much our cities would cost.

NK: A lot. I don't want to put a price tag on that.

GJ: So I'm going to close out the category of the metro system, and I'm going to be taking a big city off the board here, and I'm going to be taking Chicago. It's the L, short for Elevated. It's operated by the Chicago Transit Authority, and it is famous for running above the streets, and I love that about it. It's very beautiful. I've been to Chicago. I've never ridden on it before, of course, but it has the Red Line, the Blue Line, and it operates 24 hours a day, which is excellent. And also, it plays a major role in one of my favorite movies, The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford, where the bell of the L in the background is how they realize that Dr. Richard Kimball is still in Chicago, and then at the end, it's where he has the climactic fight with the one-armed man. It’s not the climactic fight of the movie, that's where he fights his friend. Forgive me, people, Dr. Richard Kimball is not well, but I'm going to go with the L. So that's Chicago. Chicago off the board. And with my third pick, I'm going to be taking the city of Charlotte for urban roads. Charlotte is one of the most walkable cities in our country. The streets have great sidewalks. It's easy to drive through the downtown area. It is extremely clean as well. There's no litter on the ground if you've ever been there. The urban streets, there's a rich history there where it grew from a Native American trading path and a colonial crossroads to this modern financial hub. I just read that off of Wikipedia, by the way. But the city also has a very great grid, and I think that when we're done here with this draft, I think what you'll notice is that our urban streets will, I'm guessing, will all have a really great grid system. For example, Pittsburgh, not a good grid system. Boston, not a good grid system. So I think that what you'll find is that the grid system is key to this category, and Charlotte has a really great easy to navigate grid system.

NK: Sounds like a solid choice.

GJ: So was Charlotte anywhere on anyone's board for that? 

BL: Charlotte was on my board for their bike network.

GJ: Ooh. Yes, they do have a bike. And Charlotte also is expanding its metro system as well. Charlotte is a great city. I highly recommend it.

JP: I’m flying to Charlotte this weekend for work.

GJ: That's right. You are for a trip. So Brandon, you're back up.

BL: Okay. I'm going to my bread and butter at Mass Transit. I'm going buses, and I am taking the city of Atlanta, Georgia off the board. I am taking MARTA's bus system. They just recently last year updated their Next Gen Bus Network, which is more than triple the number of corridors where a bus will run every 15 minutes or better, and you can pretty much travel the whole city of Atlanta on a MARTA bus, so I am taking MARTA's bus system as my third pick.

GJ: I honestly thought, Brandon, your first pick was going to be a bus system.

NK: So did I.

GJ: Yeah. Your love and knowledge of bus systems, I was like, oh, wow. I just thought that was going to be your number one.

JP: We’re trying to be strategic.

GJ: Yeah, Brandon is trying to be strategic. I see that now. All right, Brandon, good pick. Noah, you are back up.

NK: Okay. I'm going to also pick my bus network, and this one's going to be a little tough because technically a statewide agency, so I don't know if you want to just call it Newark, New Jersey, but New Jersey Transit's buses are going to be my bus network of choice. They are just making major investments into their rolling stock or their stock of buses. They've expanded their network. They're taking over services from private entities that have faltered to ensure that service can keep going. They've revamped routes and are also working on their own green commitments. Really, the system is just in a major Renaissance right now, and I think it's just such a full system and would be a great addition to my draft city.

JP: Awesome.

GJ: I love it. Okay. That means we're back to Jess. Jess, you get two picks.

JP: Okay. I'm going to go with urban streets first for my first pick. I actually chose Savannah, Georgia. So this is a city that has streets that are made for people. Most modern American cities have super blocks, wide roads and long distances between destinations. Savannah's street plan was designed almost 300 years ago around a grid of connected streets of public squares, so you're hitting a public square every couple blocks. It was built around a plan called the Oglethorpe Plan, and it's created a highly organized grid centered around public squares. Instead of a giant downtown core, the city has a network of connected blocks and gathering spaces, and it remains one of the most influential urban plans in American history. I think that what I really find interesting too, is that it adapted well to modern transportation, so it still handles vehicles, supports pedestrians, supports tourism and maintains a sense of place, and I think a 300-year-old plan that's still working, meeting our needs today, I think that's a huge endeavor, so that's my plan.

GJ: And now you get a second pick.

JP: Okay. For buses, I'm going with Kansas City. 

GJ: Whoa. Why Kansas City?

JP: Okay. Well, because it punched above its weight when it came to transit investment. It is a mid-size, traditionally car-oriented city, and I think it's kind of cool that they accept they chose to not just rely on cars for their transportation needs when they could have. They have the KC Streetcar, which helped change perceptions around downtown transit, and it spurred a development along the downtown corridor. It's also currently expanding transit options rather than just treating the streetcar as a one-off project, and it's just a great example of a city trying to grow transit ridership rather than accepting that everyone will drive forever. I think it's just went above and beyond that it had to, and it did a really good job of moving vans through the World Cup. It was a huge part of the World Cup.

GJ: That’s true. They did a great job. 

JP: So listen to our World Cup episode where I think we discussed Kansas City a little bit.

GJ: Yeah, we did. All right, Kansas City off the board. Noah, back to you.

NK: Alrighty. Man, I'm going to scooch over to the bike networks, and this was a tough one. There are so many cool bike networks out there. Oh my gosh, the research for this took me in so many amazing directions, but I had to settle on Detroit's Mogo Bike Share Program. It's a fascinating program because they really just built equity into the core of this program. So it initially launched by partnering with a bike manufacturer before the manufacturer was bought up by Lyft and so they were originally partnered with the manufacturer so they could get better rates on bikes and kind of build out their system more efficiently. Furthermore, recipients of state benefit programs are entitled to $5 annual passes that give you 60-minute free rides whenever you need. They offer transfer opportunities to give you passes to be able to use the bike share system, transferring off of a bus, so it's kind of treated as a transfer option to fill in first mile, last mile gaps. And furthermore, if you are an underbanked or unbanked individual, you're able to go and purchase passes for the bike network at kiosks throughout the city that you can already use to pay utilities and property taxes, so it really is just a fabulous bike network because they ensured everybody could use it.

GJ: All right. Brandon, back to you, sir.

BL: For the first time in this infrastructure draft, I'm taking the wildcard category.

GJ: Okay. All right. You do not have to go in any particular order. Wildcard taking. Okay, let's do it.

BL: So with my wildcard, I'm going to the city of San Diego, California, and I'm taking their trolley service.

GJ: Oh, oh my goodness. That is a great pick. Oh my goodness. I love their trolleys.

BL: So this trolley, it connects San Diego's downtown, East County, UC San Diego, South Bay, as well as the Mexican border. The trolley system serves 62 stations and over about 67.9 miles.

GJ: That is a great pick. Honestly, I've been to San Diego. Thanks to this job, I've been to San Diego three or four times. It's such a great city to go to for a conference or a meeting, and the city, I almost took it from my urban center because the city of San Diego is easy to navigate either in a car or on foot, and I have ridden the trolley. It's very easy to ride. It gets you where you're going. It's excellent, and it's great weather, so you get a nice breeze while you're there. It's awesome.

BL: The KC Streetcar, I will say, was on my board. I was back and forth with it, and so when Jess took that opportunity off the board, San Diego fit right in.

GJ: Okay. All right. So now I am up.

JP: I'm glad I picked KC when I did.

GJ: So I got a question for you. Pop quiz hotshots. When you have to pick a bus network, what do you pick? What do you pick? You pick Los Angeles, which is where the action adventure, the action film, Speed, was set, and the bus couldn't go. Once it went over 50 miles per hour, it just dropped back down. I am going with LA, off the board with their bus system. It's not just because of the movie, Speed, which is one of my favorite movies. It is because the bus system there is insane. It has 117 routes with over 11,000 bus stops. Look, Los Angeles is one of the biggest cities in the world. Their bus system is crucial to getting people from one end to the other. And look, if it wasn't good, everyone would know about it, but when you go to LA, people tell you, go ahead. People urge you to take the bus, and it's because it is efficient, and it works.

BL: No, I'm surprised LA wasn't taken yet.

GJ: Yeah, right?

JP: I know.

NK: Crazy.

GJ: Well, that's because it has. I mean, I think in terms of infrastructure, LA can be taken for one of three things. One is the airport in a wildcard situation, the bus system and the highways. The highways are good, it's just that they're clogged. They have good highways, but they just have so much congestion. So LA, off the board. With my next pick, I am going to go to the bike world. And when I think of bike lanes, I think of one city, and that is Portland, Oregon, and I'm taking Portland off the board.

BL: Ugh. I don't like that pick for me, Gavin.

GJ: Where were you going to pick it?

BL: That was going to be my bridge.

NK: Yep. Same. 

GJ: Oh, I'm winning all over the place now.

JP: Everyone's just messing up Brandon, which is if I were to have a crystal ball, that is the way I would've expected the episode to go.

GJ: I'll tell you what, I'll be completely honest with you. I have never been to Portland. As someone who's born and raised and lives in Pittsburgh, I've been told that I would love Portland. They say it's very similar to Pittsburgh in spirit and vibe.

JP: Have you watched Portlandia?

GJ: I have seen Portlandia, of course. Okay. It's so hot. It's the heat. Yeah. But the reason why I'm picking Portland is because of Portland's naked bike ride is a massive clothing optional annual event combining festive celebration of body freedom with a political protest against oil dependency and cyclist vulnerability. It is, in my opinion, because of that race alone, the epicenter of bike culture for urban centers in America, and it is my pick.

NK: It's a good pick. I won't say I'm not disappointed.

GJ: Okay. Portland, Oregon, off the board for the bridges, and we're going, were you going to take that next?

BL: Probably, but I have a backup plan. Golden Gate Bridge, anyone?

GJ: No, San Francisco's already gone. 

BL: Wait, was San Francisco taken? No.

GJ: Who took San Fran? You took San Francisco.

JP: No, he took San Diego.

GJ: Oh, yeah. I was surprised San Francisco was still. If someone had taken Portland, San Francisco was going to be my bike pick, and I was also considering it for a wild card for its trolley system. My bad. 

BL: So obviously the Golden Gate Bridge, iconic, the architecture, the setting, the historical significance, I think given what was on the board left here, I think this is the right time to take San Francisco off the board.

NK: Okay. It's a fair pick.

GJ: Yeah, it's a good. It's like Robert De Niro over here. It's a good bridge. It's a good bridge.

NK: All right. Noah, we're going back to you.

NK: Okay. I'll also head to the bridges category just because I don't want my city to get taken before it does, but I think I'm going to head to Minneapolis for their bridges.

JP: That's a great bridge. That's my bike network.

NK: Sorry. They just have some really great bridges. They're iconic bridges, like the Washington Avenue Bridge that added a transit connection after it opened connecting the two banks of the University of Minnesota. It's a great multimodal option for transit pedestrians and vehicles. It was also a selection because of the sheer volume of bridges that allow people to cross the river without a car. 25 to be exact. So great bridge city. There are just so many iconic bridges. I think that's a pretty self-explanatory pick.

GJ: Yeah, really is. And you know what? Minneapolis also had a bridge collapse in 2007, and it became a city that really launched a push for fixing America's bridge infrastructure and doing a better job with rehabilitation and inspection. And so Minneapolis's bridge culture is very important to the rest of the country. That's a great pick, Noah. All right, Jess, we're back to you with two picks. How many picks do you have left?

JP: So I have wildcard, bike and highways.

GJ: All right. When it gets back to me, I have two picks left. 

JP: So when it gets back to me, then I have the last one. Okay. Since my bike network just got taken, I am not going to do that right now. I need time, so we're going to go to highways, and for highways, I selected the city that I recently moved to, Tulsa. The reason I chose that city is because I have not experienced any traffic here, but that is because that's by design. That's not just because of population people.

GJ: It's not because no one lives there.

JP: So I mean, most people think of major highway cities as spaces with giant interchanges and huge traffic volumes. Tulsa's system does what it's supposed to do. It moves people efficiently. We have something called the inner dispersal loop, which surrounds downtown. It makes it easy to move traffic around the city without forcing everyone through the urban core, and it has multiple access points into downtown rather than one bottleneck. I mean, sometimes if I'm driving between downtown, I just hop on that, and it gets you there in two minutes, and you're not hitting every light, so it keeps downtown very open. It also has major routes that connect Tulsa to Oklahoma City, Arkansas, Kansas and Texas, which it's an important freight and logistics corridor without the extreme congestion seen in larger metro areas, so I'm very happy with my highway system here.

GJ: Yeah. Tulsa's definitely a city that is getting lots of good buzz for not just its highways, but also just for its urban center and so it's a place people are moving to like Jess. It's a great place to drive through, great place to visit, great place to live. All right. What is your next pick?

JP: Okay, I have to go wildcard, so I chose the Connecticut Long Island Ferry.

GJ: I like that. Why did you choose that?

JP: Because there's no bridge connecting Connecticut and Long Island. There's so many commuters going through there, so it solved a problem without the need of a huge infrastructure spend of building a bridge. 

BL: Wow. 

JP: And it's just utilizing what's already there instead of crossing the Long Island Sound, but it's just utilizing the Long Island Sound in a way that works, and it connects two major regions while avoiding the long drive through New York City. I mean, it cuts down so much time for some people. If you can avoid New York City entirely, that's a huge win. And then, I mean, I've ridden it before, it's really fun. And then I also think that it does more than just serve tourists going from going to the Hamptons and whatnot. It is used by commuters. It's used for seasonal traffic. It's used in a lot of ways, so I think that's why I chose it.

GJ: Excellent.

BL: I said, ‘wow’ because Jess is playing chess over here, and I'm playing checkers.

GJ: You've done your homework. I knew once you picked Savannah for your urban streets, I was just like, ‘Okay, she came to play’.

JP: I came to play. I'm here. I'm our JP, just playing.

NK: There we go.

GJ: Amazing. All right, Noah, we're back to you.

NK: Okay. Oh man, I'll go with my highway. So I picked Syracuse, New York, for my highways because they're in the midst of a really big revitalization project for their highways that I think is just fascinating, so they're redesigning and removing highway to make the highway run better. It's pulling out a stretch of highway that divided the downtown area, and it's replacing it with a distributed street network that meshes the highway and creates a better connection to various hospitals, employers and Syracuse University. It's kind of making connections to the metro better as well, and it just completed upgrades across I-41, which is now I-481, which is now just I-81, and it just looks to create a business loop for easier access and to cut down congestion and to get rid of that downtown division. And so this project is really pulling quadruple duty to improve Syracuse, and I'm all for that. Let's make the highways make the town work better.

GJ: All right. Brandon, back to you.

BL: So I have my bike network left. I have my urban street left. I'm going to go with urban streets. I'm going to take the city of Miami, Florida.

GJ: Okay. Why Miami?

BL: It is obviously one of the most tourist cities in the country, so it's just designed to be for large people. It's designed for large cars. It's designed for walking. There's a bunch of shops and tourism. And obviously, just the view and the scenery, I think it's just designed well for people and for people to get around in whatever mode that they possibly want, and their transit system's expanding as well.

GJ: And what category was that again?

BL: That was Urban Street.

GJ: All right. So I have two picks left, and my highway system is one, and I'm going to pick it, and I have one gripe about it, but I'm going to say the good stuff first. And with my highway system, I'm going to take Dallas. Now, the reason I'm taking Dallas is because its capacity is insane. There's so many lanes. It is just an incredibly massive network. The Interstate 35 East runs north-south. If you've ever driven on it, it is incredible how many cars are on it on a given day. And also, I'm flustered here by just what to say here. I mean, it has just a key radial of interstates connected around the city. It has loop configurations. It has stacked interchanges that are iconic. The aerial view of Dallas is shown, if you just Google search highway, it's going to be Dallas. It's iconic. My one ripe about it is that there's no merge lanes. If you're going onto the highway, there's no real yield merging situation. You need to just be ready to gun it, at least on the places where I've merged onto it and almost died, but it's the highway for the best of the best drivers. If you are a really great offensive, aggressive driver, you need to be driving on Dallas's network.

BL: How many of those are there in the country? Less than 5% maybe?

GJ: Of? 

BL: Great drivers.

GJ: Well, I mean, I'm a great driver.

JP: I’m a great driver. 

GJ: But it's just the list in the Dallas area, and this isn't Fort Worth, this is just Dallas, but the amount of interstates and freeways that are all around there connecting with each other, it's great engineering, the way they've designed it to connect and the way they maintain it. It's just a really great place. Well, it's easy to drive if you can handle the speed, but it's easy to navigate. I've been through there a few times. I haven't experienced much congestion, and that's because of how many lanes there are. It's a good network. All right. And so that is my highway. And then my last one, I'm going to go airport. And the reason I'm doing this for my wildcard is because in order to have a truly good city by design, and a key piece of that infrastructure is the airport. And I'm going with the Tampa International Airport in Tampa, Florida, and the reason why is it serves over 100 nonstop destinations, and it is widely known for it's easy to navigate layout and central location. And also, you can get through that security very quickly. If you're an hour and a half from your flight, and you're in downtown Tampa, and you need to get to the airport, an hour and a half is fine. Now, if I was in Pittsburgh, and I was downtown and needed to get to the airport, my flight was leaving in an hour and a half, I would be sweating bullets riddled with anxiety because I have to drive all the way out to the airport, park, take a shuttle, go through an insane amount of security. Not at Tampa. Tampa is an easy place to get to. It's not far from the city. Its security system. The TSA there moves really fast, especially when you have TSA pre-check, and the parking's good. The layout inside is excellent. There's good restaurants. It is an excellent place to fly in and out of. My pick is Tampa for wildcard, and that closes me out.

JP: Well, I just want to say that that means our producer, Maz, has no reason to ever miss a flight.

GJ: Well, that was the case, but Maz is moving to Miami from Tampa. She's leaving Tampa. But another thing is last week, I was hanging out with one of the leaders of Yorkbridge Concepts, one of Roads and Bridge's advertisers, and he is from Tampa. Shout out to Brian Kennedy, and he's paid by the Tampa Airport. He's like, ‘No, no, you don't understand. Tampa's airport's the best’. One place I'll tell you does not have a good airport is Hartford, Connecticut, where I was trapped last Friday for over seven hours.

JP: That is the worst airport. 

GJ: Oh my God. I never want to visit Hartford's airport ever again after being trapped there. But Tampa, lovely place. All right. Brandon is back to you.

BL: Okay. I have some thoughts because Tampa was going to be actually one of my options for a bus network if I wanted to go that route. 

GJ: Oh my God. 

BL: But I did not. So I left it open for you, Gavin, to take there. Maz, shout out to Miami's urban streets. I know that you're going to enjoy them very much when you get down there. So I have one pick left. It is my bike network, and I am going to the city of Longmount, Colorado, which is about 45 minutes outside of Denver, and my reasoning for this is basically because of their new e-bike program. They have made approximately 30 bicycle e-bikes available for public use at docking stations. B-Cycle has operated in Boulder, Colorado for more than 15 years. And so this Longmount is sort of new and expanding, and it's helping people travel in that city to where buses and rails aren't as readily available as they are in Denver. Which by the way, the Denver airport, if we're talking about airports, is one of the biggest airports in the country. It's huge, but it's beautiful as well.

GJ: But it isn’t. I'm sorry, but you're not going to promote Denver's Satanic Airport. 

JP: That's the worst airport ever. I literally had to walk in the same terminal for 45 minutes. It was awful. I wanted to die.

BL: I've been there twice and I have not had that experience. It is very far out from everything. I will say that it takes about 30 minutes just to get out of that airport, but inside I find it aesthetically pleasing. But yeah, I am taking the city of Longmount, Colorado, for my bike network, and that closes me out.

GJ: I just want to say that the Denver International Airport is the center of a famous urban legend and conspiracy theory claiming that it is linked to Satan, the illuminati and/or a secret underground bunker. The myths stem from its over-budget construction, dramatic artwork and striking exterior sculptures, so I would've vetoed. No one's allowed to take Denver's airport as a wildcard. That was the worst airport. Yeah, no. All right. Noah, you're up.

NK: Alrighty. So all I've got left is my wild card. And a wild card it is because I'm going to be taking Arlington, Texas's on-demand transit network, and the reason I'm doing so is because they don't have a fixed route transit network. All of their transit is facilitated through Via Transportation's contract with the city to run on-demand, which is very unusual because the city has a population of 400,000. And from all the research I did, it is the biggest U.S. city that doesn't have fixed-route public transit, so I figured if any city would understand how to run on-demand transit well, it would be Arlington, Texas. So that is my pick for my wild card.

GJ: Okay, excellent. All right, Jess.

JP: Okay. So to close it out, I have Madison, Wisconsin for my bike network.

GJ: That's a great choice. It's a city that is, it's a funky little city. I like Madison. College town. It's where the University of Wisconsin is. And it's built on an Isthmus, a narrow strip of land between lakes, which naturally funnels people into biking and walking corridors, and it's invested heavily in extensive network of bike paths, protected lanes and multi-use trails. Bicycling is used as a real mode of transport there. It's not just a weekend activity. It's really how people get around this city, and Madison's done a really good job of investing in that.

GJ: That closes us out. We’ve all picked. So let's go through. Brandon, you go first and recap your picks.

BL: Okay. So I took the city of Houston for my highway. I took New York City for my subway. I took the city of Atlanta for my bus network. I took San Diego Trolley as my wild card. I took the city of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge is my bridge. 

GJ: Well, bridges, you don't just get the Golden Bridge. San Francisco has several bridges. You get all of them.

BL: Okay. Fair enough.

GJ: They have the San Francisco Oakland Bridge, which is also iconic.

BL: Which is also on my list, by the way.

GJ: Well, it should be. It's part of the city.

BL: And then I took the city of Miami for my urban street and then I took the city of Longmount, Colorado, for my bike network.

GJ: Excellent. Noah, recap.

NK: Alrighty. So I took the DC Metro for my Metro pick. I took Salt Lake City for my urban streets. I took Newark/New Jersey or New Jersey Transit for my bus network. I took Detroit's Mogo for my bike network, Minneapolis for its bridges, Syracuse for its highways and Arlington, Texas, as my wildcard for its on-demand transit network.

GJ: Honestly, that's an impressive list. I think Noah might've won.

NK: I think I did too. 

GJ: Yeah, I'm not sure. We'll let the listeners judge, but that's pretty good. Jess, please recap.

JP: Okay. I chose Boston for my Metro, which is probably my weakest pick, but that's what I chose. And then Seattle, bridges. Kansas City for the bus network, the KC Streetcar. Savannah for my urban streets, Tulsa for highways, the Connecticut Long Island Ferry for my wildcard and Madison, Wisconsin, for my bike network.

GJ: Okay. All right. And for me, my recap, we got urban streets, the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. My bus transit network, I took Los Angeles. My metro subway system, I took Chicago. My highway system, I took Dallas. For my bike network, I chose Portland, Oregon. For my wildcard, I chose airport in Tampa, Florida. And for bridges, I chose the city of Bridges, Pittsburgh, and that is it. We did it.

BL: Gavin, that's a really good list as well. 

GJ: Thank you very much.

NK: We all came up with great lists, honestly. I'd be happy to live in any of these cities. 

GJ: What we should do now is we should have AI compile our list and show us what those cities would each look like.

JP: Yeah.

BL: That would be cool. 

GJ: Yeah. Just waste so much water doing it and create the image.

NK: I'm curious, did anybody have any like, ‘oh, I was going to use this if somebody took mine’, and it was just a cool honorable mention?

GJ: Yes, we should go through honorable mentions. That's a great idea. I think that in terms of urban roads, no one picked Philadelphia. The great grid system, very historic there. We also did not pick in highways of a city we talked about very recently on the intervention episode, Phoenix. Phoenix has a great highway system, which is surprisingly efficient.

JP: Did we stay away from the Southwest almost entirely?

GJ: Well, Salt Lake City.

JP: No one picked Albuquerque. Yeah, we stayed away from the Southwest.

NK: After we all made a case for it.

GJ: Let’s see, what else do we have here? The bus systems, there are a lot of cities that you could have picked. Cleveland has a really good bus system, so does Indianapolis. Albuquerque has a good rapid transit.

BL: Yeah, they do.

NK: Also, lots of really good bike networks out there. Like I said, I was really fascinated by both Milwaukee’s and San Francisco's because they've actually integrated accessible bikes into their programs, which I think is just excellent.

GJ: Washington, D.C., could have been a bike network as well.

GJ: Oh, yes. For sure. 

JP: So I had chosen Minneapolis originally for my bike network because apparently it's really popular in the wintertime as well, and if you have people using bikes in the winter in Minneapolis, I mean that is a feat right there. I think that's incredible.

BL: For my wildcard, I was back and forth and debating. I almost went to the city of Jacksonville because we did an ITP episode on this back when it was their NAVI system, the first autonomous system in the country, and it's running really well. They've expanded it. It's completely integrated now into downtown Jacksonville. And then before Jess stole Seattle, I was going to take the King County Metro’s bus system. They've done so many improvements there with their Rapid Ride service, and they keep building new buses and new service lanes. I mean, Seattle in general, they have done so much in terms of infrastructure and bus and rail and so many projects where it's like at this point, they're trying to make it obvious that you don't need a car to live in Seattle. There's so many transit options.

GJ: Yeah. Well, okay. That does it. That was our inaugural infrastructure draft. The first ever itp infrastructure draft. We should try to come up with some other because this was a lot of fun. We want to thank you, the listener, for listening. We want to thank Maz, our producer and editor who is not going to be happy with the runtime of this episode at all. And we also want to thank EndeavorB2B for the platform, and we want to thank you, the listener again. Please vote on who has created the best city. We'll post it on our social media and give us a shout out. Our email is [email protected]. For Roads and Bridges, I'm Gavin Jenkins.

BL: I'm Brandon Lewis.

JP: I’m Jessica Parks.

NK: And I'm Noah Kolenda. 

GJ: Until next time, goodbye.