Podcasts about MTA

New York Attorney General Letitia James is proposing new regulations that would require social media users to prove their age with photo or video verification. It's part of an effort to curb the effect of addictive feeds on minors. Meanwhile, the MTA is expanding its bus lane camera program in Queens and the Bronx to keep lanes clear and improve service. Plus, despite Mayor Adams' cash incentives, landlords have not reopened any warehoused rent-stabilized apartments. WNYC's David Brand explains why the city is now doubling the payout in hopes of bringing units back on the market.

In this episode we apply the famous Hero's Journey framework to marathon training and talk about how you can overcome obstacles, transform into a stronger runner, and gain the wisdom to inspire others! [powerpress] [box] Links Mentioned in This Episode Run Coaching. Work with a MTA running Coach. STEP SPORTS TOKYO -a newly renovated flagship running store. Show them this episode and get 7% off plus tax-free service. Valid until the end of March 2026. Shokz- the industry leader and pioneer in open-ear headphone technology. Use code MTA for $10 off! IQBAR brain and body-boosting bars, hydration mixes, and mushroom coffees. Their Ultimate Sampler Pack includes all three! Get 20% off plus FREE shipping. Just text “MTA” to 64000. AG1 Next Gen has new flavors: new flavors: Citrus, Tropical, and Berry. Get a free Welcome Kit with your first order which includes 5 AG1 Travel Packs, a shaker bottle, metal canister, and a bottle of AG Vitamin D3+K2. [/box]

The MTA is bracing for a possible Long Island Rail Road strike next week as five unions representing nearly half the workforce vote on whether to walk out. Meanwhile, the City Council has passed legislation requiring the city to track and report thousands of supportive housing units that remain vacant despite record demand in shelters. Also, Clifton Park resident Joseph Macken has gone viral after completing a 20-year project: a 50-by-30-foot scale model of New York City built from balsa wood and Styrofoam. Plus, in this week's transportation segment, we break down what's at stake in the LIRR contract talks and the state comptroller's new audit of subway service.

A professor has created three artworks at Hunter college station at 68th street that are now a part of the MTA art collection. The murals are called "Liminal Location" and "Tempestuous Terrain." Lisa Corrine Davis joins us to tell us about her practice and her new show at Miles McEnery Gallery called Syllogism.

The New Jersey Department of Health issued an executive order effectively allowing New Jerseyans six months or older to get a COVID shot. Plus, two million New Yorkers insured through Healthfirst could lose coverage this fall for a major hospital network. And finally, while hundreds spend hours in line for tickets to Shakespeare in the Park, they're entertained by Garald Farnham playing the lute.

First came the token. Then the MetroCard. Now, a new chapter in New York City transit history is about to begin. The MTA plans to retire the MetroCard at the end of this year, replacing it with OMNY, a contactless payment system. Shirin Hakim checks in with New Yorkers to see how they feel about saying goodbye to a city icon.

City Council leaders have asked the Board of Elections to block three proposed ballot questions that could speed up housing development while limiting Council power. Meanwhile, Governor Kathy Hochul must decide whether to sign a bill requiring two-person crews on subway trains, a move the Transport Workers Union says is critical for safety but the MTA warns could raise costs. Plus, New York City is struggling to keep enough ambulance workers on the streets, with union leaders warning that record turnover and stalled contract talks are driving longer waits for 911 emergency response. Vice president of the FDNY EMS officers union Anthony Almojera joins us to explain.

Gyárország és munkaerőimport - a 63. Közgazdász-vándorgyűlés munkaügyi szekciójaSzekcióelnök: Bagó József szerkesztő, rovatvezető, MunkaügyiSzemle.hu, az MKT Munkaügyi Szakosztályának elnökeElőadók:Bod Péter Ákos egyetemi tanár, Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem, az MTA doktora, az MKT alelnökeCzirfusz Márton társalapító, Periféria Közpolitikai és Kutatóközpont, az MKT Munkaügyi Szakosztályának elnökségi tagjaSzabó Imre Szilárd egyetemi docens, Károli Gáspár Református Egyetem, ügyvéd, a Munkástanácsok alelnöke

Charlie on the MTA in Yiddish is performed by Yiddishists from Boston's Arbeter Ring and exclusively recorded for The Yiddish Voice on Labor Day, Sept. 1, 2025, in Medford, MA. All of the following sang, with additional contributions noted: ליליע װײַצמאַן — Lily Weitzman · איבערזעצונג און נײַע סטראָפֿע (translation, introduction and new verse) יונה סידמאַן — Jonah Sidman · גיטאַר (guitar) עמאַ ברעסלאָװ — Emma Breslow · טשאַרלי צאָלט זײַן דײַם (“Charlie pays his dime”) verse שׂרה־לו האַרטמאַן — Lou Hartman · הערט אויס בירגער פֿון באָסטאָן (“Citizens of Boston, hear me out”) verse ליבע גריץ — Linda Gritz Marc Caplan in conversation with Yiddish Voice host Mark David (Meyer) about the recent Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. The film traces Dylan's formative years, culminating in his landmark performance of Like a Rolling Stone at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival in a mostly-Jewish band of blues-rock musicians — Bob Dylan (guitar and vocals), Michael Bloomfield (guitar), Al Kooper (bass), and Barry Goldberg (organ). (Drummer Sam Lay was the non-Jewish member.) Marc Caplan is a Yiddish literature and Bob Dylan expert, currently Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth. We reached Marc at his home in the Dartmouth College/Hanover, NH, area via Zoom on Sept. 3, 2025. CORRECTION: Murray Lerner, who filmed the Newport Folk Festivals (including Dylan's 1965 performance), is incorrectly identified by Meyer as “Lerman” in the interview. Related links: Marc Caplan's article in Afn Shvel #351-350 Winter-Spring 2006: באָב דילאַן: פֿאַרנומען מיטן געבױרן װערן: https://docs.leagueforyiddish.org/mark-brukhes-artikl.pdf Marc Caplan's academic website: https://dartmouth.academia.edu/MarcCaplan Wiki page for the film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Complete_Unknown Mike Bloomfield's Final Interview - Part Two (1981): https://youtu.be/K7cKLr6tOdE Bob Dylan - Like A Rolling Stone (Live at Newport 1965): https://youtu.be/a6Kv0vF41Bc (from Murray Lerner's film The Other Side of the Mirror) Music: Kingston Trio: M.T.A. (A/K/A "Charlie on the MTA") (from YouTube: https://youtu.be/S7Jw_v3F_Q0) (Yiddishists in Boston - see credits above): Charlie on the M.T.A. (in Yiddish translation, with added verse) Bob Dylan: Like a Rolling Stone (recorded live at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965) Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS from Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz Air Date: September 3, 2025

This is the All Local 5am update for September 5th, 2025

Small residential facilities where people can stay during mental health crises are expanding across New York, growing from eight in 2021 to 43 statewide. Meanwhile, prosecutors say 18-year-old Faisil McCants faces federal robbery and gun charges in an East Harlem shooting that killed 69-year-old bystander Robin Wright. The NYPD says he is also charged with murder and weapons offenses. Also, New York's LGBTQ+ film festival NewFest is offering free screenings to Arizonans after Phoenix's Desperado Film Festival was canceled under federal orders targeting diversity and inclusion programs. Plus, MTA data show major incidents delaying 50 or more trains peaked in June and July, marking the worst summer for subway service since 2018.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is out with a new report that grades city bus lines. Plus, the New York Times reports that President Trump's advisers have discussed offering jobs to Mayor Eric Adams and Republican Curtis Sliwa to get them out of the mayoral race. Also, shifting federal guidance of vaccinations could make getting a COVID shot more of a hassle this year. And finally, Lifelong New Yorker Chloë Bass turns the MTA's public address system into art.

brianturnershow.com, eastvillageradio.comPUFF TUBE - Boys of Summer - 7" (Spazz Action, 1993)BPA - Motivation - By-Products Of America (Hospital, 1983)SICK DICK & THE VOLKSWAGENS - Interference - Interference (cs, New Frontiers, 1991)JUMA - Pulse Dance - Selected Works (1981, re: Bitter Lake Recordings, 2019)TANGLED SHOELACES - The Day the Rainclouds Went Away - V/A: Queensland in Quarantine (cs, NL, 1984)SIMO CELL - Circuits - FL Louis EP (TemeT, 2025)SPARKS - Porcupine - Madder! EP (Transgressive, 2025)COOL WHIP - Trapt - Flame In My Heart (Wharf Cat, 2025)THURSTON MOORE - Temptation Inside Your Heart (Daydream Library, 2025)ENGLAND'S GLORY - It's Been a Long Time - s/t (1973, re: 5 Hours Back, 1987)DUNAL - No Congregation Here - Dunal Chronicles (EOD, 2017)BRIAN RURYK - Even If You - Dont Let It Slow You Down Even If You Are a Misfit (Chocolate Monk, 2025)MONEY - Money - Money (Love Earth Music, 2025)BRUCE RUSSELL - Blues For HRK (BC, 2025)ARAWI - La Doctrina De Las Ciclas - La Doctrina De Las Ciclas (New Albion, 1990)PIERRE ELITAIR - Daniel Is Alleen Gaan Wonen - Gedigitaliseerde Cassettes (Ultra Eczema, 2020)MATT ROBIDOUX -  Background Corn -  Background Corn (cs, Already Dead, 2025)SAINT ABDULLAH & EOMAC - Kick it Until it's Bent - Of No Fixed Abode (Trilogy Tapes, 2025)EDDIE PALMIERI - Que Suene La Orquesta - Mambo Con Conga Is Mozambique (Tico, 1966)JOAN SOLER / JAUME ARNELLA - Ai, No Em Diguis! - V/A: 1ª Ronda De Cançons (Tic Productora, 1972)GALAXIE 500 - Flowers - CBGB 12.13.88 (Silver Current, 2025)KEIJI HAINO & SHUTA HASUNUMA - Latency - U  TA (Temporal Drift, 2025)BILL GOODWIN & SHARON ROBERTS - Lonely Rider - 7" (MTA, 1968)ROBERT TURMAN - Relay. Circa 1977 - V/A: The Alien Territory Archives: A Collection of Radical, Experimental, & Irrelevant Music from 1970s San Diego (Nyaah, 2025)FADENSONNEN - I'm the Knife - 7" (NL, 2025)LAUGHING HYENAS - Seven Come Eleven - You Can't Pray a Lie (Touch & Go, 1989)L. DON ŌKAMI - Banjo Machine Music - Tim Holehouse mix - Banjo Machine Music (Ikuisuus, 2025)

We're kicking off Super September with a heavy-hitter: Demetrius Crichlow, President of New York City Transit.In this powerful episode, Crichlow sits down with Paul Comfort to reflect on his 20+ year rise through the MTA—from climbing signal poles at Long Island Rail Road to overseeing the nation's largest transit system.Crichlow doesn't sugarcoat the challenges. He opens up about leading through a crisis of public trust, tackling rising crime, modernizing aging infrastructure, and navigating tough conversations about race, fairness, and opportunity inside large institutions. Highlights include:How fare evasion was reduced by 27%Why putting people first means choosing talent over tenureWhat CBTC (communications-based train control) means for NYCThe hidden complexity of drainage, substations, and keeping a 24/7 system runningWhy congestion pricing is more than just a revenue streamA bold leadership approach built on respect, experience, and strategic changeWhether you're leading a small system or managing a megacity's transit infrastructure, this episode offers insights that will stay with you. Podcast CreditsTransit Unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo, passionate about moving the world's people.Creator, Host & Producer — Paul ComfortExecutive Producer — Julie GatesProducer & Newsletter Editor — Chris O'KeefeAssociate Producer — Cyndi RaskinPodcast Intern — Desmond GatesSpecial thanks to:Brand Design — Tina OlagundoyeSocial Media — Tatyana MechkarovaGot a question or comment? Email us at info@transitunplugged.com DisclaimerThe views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Modaxo Inc., its affiliates or subsidiaries, or any entities they represent. This production belongs to Modaxo and may contain information subject to trademark, copyright, or other intellectual-property rights and restrictions. This production provides general information and should not be relied on as legal advice or opinion. Modaxo specifically disclaims all warranties, express or implied, and will not be liable for any losses, claims, or damages arising from the use of this presentation, from any material contained in it, or from any action or decision taken in response to it.

Authorities are investigating several shootings and a slashing near the West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn Monday night that left multiple people injured. Police say one man is under arrest on weapons charges. Meanwhile, a new study finds the horseshoe crab population in Long Island Sound has sharply declined over the past two decades. Also, President Trump says he will award Rudy Giuliani the Presidential Medal of Freedom days after the former mayor was injured in a car crash. Plus, new MTA statistics show subway service disruptions this summer reached their highest levels since 2018. Finally WNYC's Community and partnerships desk spent some time at 109th Avenue in South Jamaica, Queens to hear from locals.

Summer is heating up, but American Airlines is already making winter vacation plans. The carrier has announced an expanded schedule for the winter season, with seven new routes and two new destinations.In the headlines on #TheUpdate this Friday, an archery instructor was killed and 14 others were injured when lightning struck an outdoor archery range in New Jersey where a scout troop was learning how to shoot, according to the venue and local officials.We continue our coverage of The Road To City Hall. Andrew Cuomo — who infamously paraded around his control over the MTA while governor — proposed City Hall take over the reins of the transit authority as he tries to revive an independent bid for mayor following his embarrassing primary loss.And in Washington, President Trump recently had a medical checkup after noticing “mild swelling” in his lower legs and was found to have a condition common in older adults that causes blood to pool in his veins, according to the White House .

In this episode we chat with Keira D'Amato author of the new book, 'Don't Call it A Comeback -What Happened When I Stopped Chasing PRs and Started Chasing Happiness'. Keira ran competitively in college but was sidelined with an ankle injury and decided to step away from running. After having two children she started running again to get in shape and have time for herself. Fast-forward to 2022, she broke the American record in the marathon, at the age of 37, with a blazing-fast time of 2:19:12! [powerpress] [box] Links Mentioned in This Episode Run Coaching. Work with a MTA running Coach. UCAN -get the Trial Sample Pack for free with our link, just pay shipping! The Richmond Marathon on November 15, 2024 -America's Friendliest Marathon! Shokz- the industry leader and pioneer in open-ear headphone technology. Use code MTA for $10 off! Don't Call It a Comeback -book by Keira D'Amato to be released on September 9th 2025. [/box]

Joining us in the studio this week is the latest addition to the Finance team at the MTA, Maribel Ascencio and Director of Planning Dennis McDonagh.  To learn more about the MTA's community outreach or how you can join the team visit our website by clicking here.

Inspired by a report that the MTA's lost and found isn't working as well as expected, listeners call in with their stories of things they've lost and later found.

The MTA should be audited for its mismanagement over the years. Michael sees a high possibility for National Guard troops to be deployed for patrolling crime in NYC. 

Ken Rosato fills in for Mark Simone. A new poll from the Associated Press states that a vast majority of Americans, about 80 percent, think crime is a significant issue in the USA. Ken interviews Billy Prempeh - US Air Force veteran, Lifelong Paterson Resident, and 2026 NJ-CD9 Republican candidate for Congress. Billy believes that the USA has one of the lowest birth rates in the world due to its economy. Billy doesn't think Democratic candidate for governor of NJ, Mikkie Sherill, is targeting the needs of the people, such as the economy and the energy crisis in NJ. Ken Rosato fills in for Mark Simone. Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies played the race card against President Trump for firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook, who is an African American female, regarding alleged mortgage fraud. Ken interviews Michael Tannousis, Staten Island Assemblymember. The MTA should be audited for its mismanagement over the years. Michael sees a high possibility for National Guard troops to be deployed for patrolling crime in NYC.

Ken Rosato fills in for Mark Simone. Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies played the race card against President Trump for firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook, who is an African American female, regarding alleged mortgage fraud. Ken takes your calls! Ken interviews Michael Tannousis, Staten Island Assemblymember. The MTA should be audited for its mismanagement over the years. Michael sees a high possibility for National Guard troops to be deployed for patrolling crime in NYC.

The MTA should be audited for its mismanagement over the years. Michael sees a high possibility for National Guard troops to be deployed for patrolling crime in NYC. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ken Rosato fills in for Mark Simone. Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies played the race card against President Trump for firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook, who is an African American female, regarding alleged mortgage fraud. Ken takes your calls! Ken interviews Michael Tannousis, Staten Island Assemblymember. The MTA should be audited for its mismanagement over the years. Michael sees a high possibility for National Guard troops to be deployed for patrolling crime in NYC. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ken Rosato fills in for Mark Simone. A new poll from the Associated Press states that a vast majority of Americans, about 80 percent, think crime is a significant issue in the USA. Ken interviews Billy Prempeh - US Air Force veteran, Lifelong Paterson Resident, and 2026 NJ-CD9 Republican candidate for Congress. Billy believes that the USA has one of the lowest birth rates in the world due to its economy. Billy doesn't think Democratic candidate for governor of NJ, Mikkie Sherill, is targeting the needs of the people, such as the economy and the energy crisis in NJ. Ken Rosato fills in for Mark Simone. Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies played the race card against President Trump for firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook, who is an African American female, regarding alleged mortgage fraud. Ken interviews Michael Tannousis, Staten Island Assemblymember. The MTA should be audited for its mismanagement over the years. Michael sees a high possibility for National Guard troops to be deployed for patrolling crime in NYC. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Notes Derick McDuff of the Underrated Podcast returns with Rob as Garber continues his tour of the MTA building.

President Trump is threatening to cut funding to states that rolled back cash bail, including New York. Meanwhile, the MTA is holding in person hearings for riders to weigh in on fare changes. Plus, Breanna Stewart returned to the Liberty lineup after a month-long injury, scoring 19 points in an 81–79 win over the Connecticut Sun.

Ramsey Khalifeh, Gothamist and WNYC transportation reporter, talks about the latest on the MTA's plans to extend the Q to 125th Street.

In this episode we speak with Christina Henderson about the current state of the running industry and trends that are bringing more people into the sport.  Brands today are focusing on: localism, sustainability, digital integration, and experiential retail.  What does that mean for you as a consumer of running-related products and culture? Christina Henderson is the director of The Running Event -North America's premier run and outdoor specialty retail conference and trade show. She has been recognized as one of the "25 Women to Watch" in the running industry. Christina is a graduate of Columbia University and the University of Texas at Austin. [powerpress] [box] Links Mentioned in This Episode: Run Coaching. Work with a MTA running Coach. Joint Health Plus by Previnex -prevention is the best medicine and you need to protect your joint cartilage from breakdown. Use code MTA for 15% off your first order! IQBAR brain and body-boosting bars, hydration mixes, and mushroom coffees. Their Ultimate Sampler Pack includes all three! Get 20% off plus FREE shipping. Just text “MTA” to 64000. AG1 Next Gen has new flavors: new flavors: Citrus, Tropical, and Berry. Get a free Welcome Kit with your first order which includes 5 AG1 Travel Packs, a shaker bottle, metal canister, and a bottle of AG Vitamin D3+K2. The Richmond Marathon on November 15, 2024 -America's Friendliest Marathon! Drury Hotels -clean rooms and free food and drinks at the 5:30 Kickback. Use our link for 10% off! The Running Event -massive trade show and industry conference on December 2-4, 2025. [/box]

If you've ever wondered why you feel stuck, numb, or constantly on edge while living with your husband's addiction—this episode is for you.I'm sharing what I've learned on my own journey of healing from nervous system dysregulation—and why this hidden struggle might be at the root of so many things that still feel hard for you.You'll hear:Why your body reacts like it's “in danger” even in calm momentsHow long-term stress affects your mind, body, faith, and relationshipsThe real reason boundaries and coping tools feel impossible sometimesWhat healing your nervous system can unlock in your life and faithA gentle, faith-aligned way to begin this healingFriend, none of this is your fault—and you don't have to stay stuck in survival mode. Come listen and take the first step toward peace.

Give us about fifteen minutes daily, and we will give you all the local news, sports, weather, and events you can handle.   SPONSORS: Many thanks to our sponsors… Annapolis Subaru, the SPCA of Anne Arundel County, Fish for a Cure, the Annapolis Powerboat and Sailboat Shows, Interim HealthCare of Annapolis, and  Hospice of the Chesapeake.  Today... From a shooting investigation in Robinwood, to school zone cameras generating thousands of citations, a radio frequency battle between the MTA and a local broadcaster, and waterfront concerts to keep the music going into fall—we've got the latest local news and community highlights you won't want to miss on today's DNB! Link to daily news recap newsletter: https://forms.aweber.com/form/87/493412887.htm Trevor from  Annapolis Makerspace is here with your Maker Minutes! DAILY NEWSLETTER LINK: https://forms.aweber.com/form/87/493412887.htm The Eye On Annapolis Daily News Brief is produced every Monday through Friday at 6:00 am and available wherever you get your podcasts and also on our social media platforms--All Annapolis and Eye On Annapolis (FB) and @eyeonannapolis (X) NOTE: For hearing-impaired subscribers, a full transcript is available on Eye On Annapolis.

If Zohran Mamdani gets elected mayor of NYC, Governor Kathy Hochul could remove him if she wants. The left-wing media wants you to believe that most of President Trump's policies only benefit billionaires. Zohran Mamdani can't make buses free in NYC; the MTA controls that.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If Zohran Mamdani gets elected mayor of NYC, Governor Kathy Hochul could remove him if she wants. The left-wing media wants you to believe that most of President Trump's policies only benefit billionaires. Zohran Mamdani can't make buses free in NYC; the MTA controls that. Mark interviews Boston radio host Howie Carr. Howie has a new nickname for MSNBC! Howie and Mark talk about how politicians nowadays have a very unique style of have coming up with ideas, especially crazy Democrats. RFK Jr. is doing a good job, according to Howie. Network TV is down to 25 million viewers daily. AM and FM radio have about 45 million listeners daily. Zohran Mamdani is slipping in the polls. His unfavorability is up to 47% from 32%. More details are coming out about former President Biden's staff's views on him. Elon Musk won't try to come out with a third political party. Mark interviews author Ann Coulter. Ann and Mark talk about how funny it is to watch the left-wing networks cover the Putin and Trump summit. They got a lot wrong about what really happened during the summit. There is a different style of how the country is run with President Trump being a businessman instead of a politician. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If Zohran Mamdani gets elected mayor of NYC, Governor Kathy Hochul could remove him if she wants. The left-wing media wants you to believe that most of President Trump's policies only benefit billionaires. Zohran Mamdani can't make buses free in NYC; the MTA controls that. Mark takes your calls! Mark interviews Boston radio host Howie Carr. Howie has a new nickname for MSNBC! Howie and Mark talk about how politicians nowadays have a very unique style of have coming up with ideas, especially crazy Democrats. RFK Jr. is doing a good job, according to Howie. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If Zohran Mamdani gets elected mayor of NYC, Governor Kathy Hochul could remove him if she wants. The left-wing media wants you to believe that most of President Trump's policies only benefit billionaires. Zohran Mamdani can't make buses free in NYC; the MTA controls that. Mark interviews Boston radio host Howie Carr. Howie has a new nickname for MSNBC! Howie and Mark talk about how politicians nowadays have a very unique style of have coming up with ideas, especially crazy Democrats. RFK Jr. is doing a good job, according to Howie. Network TV is down to 25 million viewers daily. AM and FM radio have about 45 million listeners daily. Zohran Mamdani is slipping in the polls. His unfavorability is up to 47% from 32%. More details are coming out about former President Biden's staff's views on him. Elon Musk won't try to come out with a third political party. Mark interviews author Ann Coulter. Ann and Mark talk about how funny it is to watch the left-wing networks cover the Putin and Trump summit. They got a lot wrong about what really happened during the summit. There is a different style of how the country is run with President Trump being a businessman instead of a politician.

If Zohran Mamdani gets elected mayor of NYC, Governor Kathy Hochul could remove him if she wants. The left-wing media wants you to believe that most of President Trump's policies only benefit billionaires. Zohran Mamdani can't make buses free in NYC; the MTA controls that. Mark takes your calls! Mark interviews Boston radio host Howie Carr. Howie has a new nickname for MSNBC! Howie and Mark talk about how politicians nowadays have a very unique style of have coming up with ideas, especially crazy Democrats. RFK Jr. is doing a good job, according to Howie.

If Zohran Mamdani gets elected mayor of NYC, Governor Kathy Hochul could remove him if she wants. The left-wing media wants you to believe that most of President Trump's policies only benefit billionaires. Zohran Mamdani can't make buses free in NYC; the MTA controls that.

Two Harlem construction workers are suing contractors they blame for Legionnaires' outbreak. Plus, the National Weather Service says much of New York City, Long Island and New Jersey will be under a coastal flood watch beginning Thursday night, thanks to Hurricane Erin. Also, the MTA is leaving the Bronx behind in a key effort to speed up subway service. And finally, the parks department has used a city-owned Bronx lot as an unofficial garbage dump for decades, and locals say the smell is unbearable.

The MTA is begging for more money again. Zohran Mamdani says Andrew Cuomo is liar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

MTA Chief Financial Officer Jai Patel talks fare increases and subway ridership recovery amid the Trump administration's effort to roll back congestion pricing. Patel also discusses fare evasion and the MTA's efforts towards enforcement. She speaks with Bloomberg's Tim Stenovec and Emily Graffeo.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nonprofits, your “10 blue links” era is over. In this episode, Avinash Kaushik (Human-Made Machine; Occam's Razor) breaks down Answer Engine Optimization—why LLMs now decide who gets seen, why third-party chatter outweighs your own site, and what to do about it. We get tactical: build AI-resistant content (genuine novelty + depth), go multimodal (text, video, audio), and stamp everything with real attribution so bots can't regurgitate you into sludge. We also cover measurement that isn't delusional—group your AEO referrals, expect fewer visits but higher intent, and stop worshiping last-click and vanity metrics. Avinash updates the 10/90 rule for the AI age (invest in people, plus “synthetic interns”), and torpedoes linear funnels in favor of See-Think-Do-Care anchored in intent. If you want a blunt, practical playbook for staying visible—and actually converting—when answers beat searches, this is it. About Avinash Avinash Kaushik is a leading voice in marketing analytics—the author of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day and Web Analytics 2.0, publisher of the Marketing Analytics Intersect newsletter, and longtime writer of the Occam's Razor blog. He leads strategy at Human Made Machine, advises Tapestry on brand strategy/marketing transformation, and previously served as Google's Digital Marketing Evangelist. Uniquely, he donates 100% of his book royalties and paid newsletter revenue to charity (civil rights, early childhood education, UN OCHA; previously Smile Train and Doctors Without Borders). He also co-founded Market Motive. Resource Links Avinash Kaushik — Occam's Razor (site/home) Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik Marketing Analytics Intersect (newsletter sign-up) Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik AEO series starter: “AI Age Marketing: Bye SEO, Hello AEO!” Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik See-Think-Do-Care (framework explainer) Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik Books: Web Analytics: An Hour a Day | Web Analytics 2.0 (author pages) Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik+1 Human Made Machine (creative pre-testing) — Home | About | Products humanmademachine.com+2humanmademachine.com+2 Tapestry (Coach, Kate Spade) (company site) Tapestry Tools mentioned (AEO measurement): Trakkr (AI visibility / prompts / sentiment) Trakkr Evertune (AI Brand Index & monitoring) evertune.ai GA4 how-tos (for your AEO channel + attribution): Custom Channel Groups (create an “AEO” channel) Google Help Attribution Paths report (multi-touch view) Google Help Nonprofit vetting (Avinash's donation diligence): Charity Navigator (ratings) Charity Navigator Google for Nonprofits — Gemini & NotebookLM (AI access) Announcement / overview | Workspace AI for nonprofits blog.googleGoogle Help Example NGO Avinash supports: EMERGENCY (Italy) EMERGENCY Transcript Avinash Kaushik: [00:00:00] So traffic's gonna go down. So if you're a business, you're a nonprofit, how. Do you deal with the fact that you're gonna lose a lot of traffic that you get from a search engine? Today, when all of humanity moves to the answer Engine W world, only about two or 3% of the people are doing it. It's growing very rapidly. Um, and so the art of answer engine optimization is making sure that we are building for these LMS and not getting stuck with only solving for Google with the old SEO techniques. Some of them still work, but you need to learn a lot of new stuff because on average, organic traffic will drop between 16 to 64% negative and paid search traffic will drop between five to 30% negative. And that is a huge challenge. And the reason you should start with AEO now ​ George Weiner: [00:01:00] This week's guest, Avinash Kaushik is an absolute hero of mine because of his amazing, uh, work in the field of web analytics. And also, more importantly, I'd say education. Avinash Kaushik, , digital marketing evangelist at Google for Google Analytics. He spent 16 years there. He basically is. In the room where it happened, when the underlying ability to understand what's going on on our websites was was created. More importantly, I think for me, you know, he joined us on episode 45 back in 2016, and he still is, I believe, on the cutting edge of what's about to happen with AEO and the death of SEO. I wanna unpack that 'cause we kind of fly through terms [00:02:00] before we get into this podcast interview AEO. Answer engine optimization. It's this world of saying, alright, how do we create content that can't just be, , regurgitated by bots, , wholesale taken. And it's a big shift from SEO search engine optimization. This classic work of creating content for Google to give us 10 blue links for people to click on that behavior is changing. And when. We go through a period of change. I always wanna look at primary sources. The people that, , are likely to know the most and do the most. And he operates in the for-profit world. But make no mistake, he cares deeply about nonprofits. His expertise, , has frankly been tested, proven and reproven. So I pay attention when he says things like, SEO is going away, and AEO is here to stay. So I give you Avan Kashic. I'm beyond excited that he has come back. He was on our 45th episode and now we are well over our 450th episode. So, , who knows what'll happen next time we talk to him. [00:03:00] This week on the podcast, we have Avinash Kaushik. He is currently the chief strategy officer at Human Made Machine, but actually returning guest after many, many years, and I know him because he basically introduced me to Google Analytics, wrote the literal book on it, and also helped, by the way. No big deal. Literally birth Google Analytics for everyone. During his time at Google, I could spend the entire podcast talking about, uh, the amazing amounts that you have contributed to, uh, marketing and analytics. But I'd rather just real quick, uh, how are you doing and how would you describe your, uh, your role right now? Avinash Kaushik: Oh, thank you. So it's very excited to be back. Um, look forward to the discussion today. I do, I do several things concurrently, of course. I, I, I am an author and I write this weekly newsletter on marketing and analytics. Um, I am the Chief Strategy Officer at Human Made Machine, a company [00:04:00] that obsesses about helping brands win before they spend by doing creative pretesting. And then I also do, uh, uh, consulting at Tapestry, which owns Coach and Kate Spades. And my work focuses on brand strategy and marketing transformation globally. George Weiner: , Amazing. And of course, Occam's Razor. The, the, yes, the blog, which is incredible. I happen to be a, uh, a subscriber. You know, I often think of you in the nonprofit landscape, even though you operate, um, across many different brands, because personally, you also actually donate all of your proceeds from your books, from your blog, from your subscription. You are donating all of that, um, because that's just who you are and what you do. So I also look at you as like team nonprofit, though. Avinash Kaushik: You're very kind. No, no, I, I, yeah. All the proceeds from both of my books and now my newsletter, premium newsletter. It's about $200,000 a year, uh, donated to nonprofits, and a hundred [00:05:00] percent of the revenue is donated nonprofit, uh, nonprofits. And, and for me, it, it's been ai. Then I have to figure out. Which ones, and so I research nonprofits and I look up their cha charity navigators, and I follow up with the people and I check in on the works while, while don't work at a nonprofit, but as a customer of nonprofits, if you will. I, I keep sort of very close tabs on the amazing work that these charities do around the world. So feel very close to the people that you work with very closely. George Weiner: So recently I got an all caps subject line from you. Well, not from you talking about this new acronym that was coming to destroy the world, I think is what you, no, AEO. Can you help us understand what answer engine optimization is? Avinash Kaushik: Yes, of course. Of course. We all are very excited about ai. Obviously you, you, you would've to live in. Some backwaters not to be excited about it. And we know [00:06:00] that, um, at the very edge, lots of people are using large language models, chat, GPT, Claude, Gemini, et cetera, et cetera, in the world. And, and increasingly over the last year, what you have begun to notice is that instead of using a traditional search engine like Google or using the old Google interface with the 10 blue links, et cetera. People are beginning to use these lms. They just go to chat, GPT to get the answer that they want. And the one big difference in this, this behavior is I actually have on September 8th, I have a keynote here in New York and I have to be in Shanghai the next day. That is physically impossible because it, it just, the time it takes to travel. But that's my thing. So today, if I wanted to figure out what is the fastest way. On September 8th, I can leave New York and get to Shanghai. I would go to Google flights. I would put in the destinations. It will come back with a crap load of data. Then I poke and prod and sort and filter, and I have to figure out which flight is right for that. For this need I have. [00:07:00] So that is the old search engine world. I'm doing all the work, hunting and pecking, drilling down, visiting websites, et cetera, et cetera. Instead, actually what I did is I went to charge GBT 'cause I, I have a plus I, I'm a paying member of charge GBT and I said to charge GBTI have to do a keynote between four and five o'clock on September 8th in New York and I have to be in Shanghai as fast as I possibly can be After my keynote, can you find me the best flight? And I just typed in those two sentences. He came back and said, this Korean airline website flight is the best one for you. You will not get to your destination on time until, unless you take a private jet flight for $300,000. There is your best option. They're gonna get to Shanghai on, uh, September 10th at 10 o'clock in the morning if you follow these steps. And so what happened there? I didn't have to hunt and pack and dig and go to 15 websites to find the answer I wanted. The engine found the [00:08:00] answer I wanted at the end and did all the work for me that you are seeing from searching, clicking, clicking, clicking, clicking, clicking to just having somebody get you. The final answer is what I call the, the, the underlying change in consumer behavior that makes answer engine so exciting. Obviously, it creates a challenge for us because what happened between those two things, George is. I didn't have to visit many websites. So traffic is going down, obviously, and these interfaces at the moment don't have paid search links for now. They will come, they will come, but they don't at the moment. So traffic's gonna go down. So if you're a business, you're a nonprofit, how. Do you deal with the fact that you're gonna lose a lot of traffic that you get from a search engine? Today, when all of humanity moves to the answer Engine W world, only about two or 3% of the people are doing it. It's growing very rapidly. Um, and so the art of answer engine optimization [00:09:00] is making sure that we are building for these LMS and not getting stuck with only solving for Google with the old SEO techniques. Some of them still work, but you need to learn a lot of new stuff because on average, organic traffic will drop between 16 to 64% negative and paid search traffic will drop between five to 30% negative. And that is a huge challenge. And the reason you should start with AEO now George Weiner: that you know. Is a window large enough to drive a metaphorical data bus through? And I think talk to your data doctor results may vary. You are absolutely right. We have been seeing this with our nonprofit clients, with our own traffic that yes, basically staying even is the new growth. Yeah. But I want to sort of talk about the secondary implications of an AI that has ripped and gripped [00:10:00] my website's content. Then added whatever, whatever other flavors of my brand and information out there, and is then advising somebody or talking about my brand. Can you maybe unwrap that a little bit more? What are the secondary impacts of frankly, uh, an AI answering what is the best international aid organization I should donate to? Yes. As you just said, you do Avinash Kaushik: exactly. No, no, no. This such a, such a wonderful question. It gets to the crux. What used to influence Google, by the way, Google also has an answer engine called Gemini. So I just, when I say Google, I'm referring to the current Google that most people use with four paid links and 10 SEO links. So when I say Google, I'm referring to that one. But Google also has an answer engine. I, I don't want anybody saying Google does is not getting into the answer engine business. It is. So Google is very much influenced by content George that you create. I call it one P content, [00:11:00] first party content. Your website, your mobile app, your YouTube channel, your Facebook page, your, your, your, your, and it sprinkles on some amount of third party content. Some websites might have reviews about you like Yelp, some websites might have PR releases about you light some third party content. Between search engine and engines. Answer Engines seem to overvalue third party content. My for one p content, my website, my mobile app, my YouTube channel. My, my, my, everything actually is going down in influence while on Google it's pretty high. So as here you do SEO, you're, you're good, good ranking traffic. But these LLMs are using many, many, many, literally tens of thousands more sources. To understand who you are, who you are as a nonprofit, and it's [00:12:00] using everybody's videos, everybody's Reddit posts, everybody's Facebook things, and tens of thousands of more people who write blogs and all kinds of stuff in order to understand who you are as a nonprofit, what services you offer, how good you are, where you're falling short, all those negative reviews or positive reviews, it's all creepy influence. Has gone through the roof, P has come down, which is why it has become very, very important for us to build a new content strategy to figure out how we can influence these LMS about who we are. Because the scary thing is at this early stage in answer engines, someone else is telling the LLMs who you are instead of you. A more, and that's, it feels a little scary. It feels as scary as a as as a brand. It feels very scary as I'm a chief strategy officer, human made machine. It feels scary for HMM. It feels scary for coach. [00:13:00] It's scary for everybody, uh, which is why you really urgently need to get a handle on your content strategy. George Weiner: Yeah, I mean, what you just described, if it doesn't give you like anxiety, just stop right now. Just replay what we just did. And that is the second order effects. And you know, one of my concerns, you mentioned it early on, is that sort of traditional SEO, we've been playing the 10 Blue Link game for so long, and I'm worried that. Because of the changes right now, roughly what 20% of a, uh, search is AI overview, that number's not gonna go down. You're mentioning third party stuff. All of Instagram back to 2020, just quietly got tossed into the soup of your AI brand footprint, as we call it. Talk to me about. There's a nonprofit listening to this right now, and then probably if they're smart, other organizations, what is coming in the next year? They're sitting down to write the same style of, you know, [00:14:00] ai, SEO, optimized content, right? They have their content calendar. If you could have like that, I'm sitting, you're sitting in the room with them. What are you telling that classic content strategy team right now that's about to embark on 2026? Avinash Kaushik: Yes. So actually I, I published this newsletter just last night, and this is like the, the fourth in my AEO series, uh, newsletter, talks about how to create your content portfolio strategy. Because in the past we were like, we've got a product pages, you know, the equivalent of our, our product pages. We've got some, some, uh, charitable stories on our website and uh, so on and so forth. And that's good. That's basic. You need to do the basics. The interesting thing is you need to do so much more both on first party. So for example, one of the first things to appreciate is LMS or answer engines are far more influenced by multimodal content. So what does that mean? Text plus [00:15:00] video plus audio. Video and audio were also helpful in Google. And remember when I say Google, I'm referring to the old linky linking Google, not Gemini. But now video has ton more influence. So if you're creating a content strategy for next year, you should say many. Actually, lemme do one at a time. Text. You have to figure out more types of things. Authoritative Q and as. Very educational deep content around your charity's efforts. Lots of text. Third. Any seasonality, trends and patterns that happen in your charity that make a difference? I support a school in, in Nepal and, and during the winter they have very different kind of needs than they do during the summer. And so I bumped into this because I was searching about something seasonality related. This particular school for Tibetan children popped up in Nepal, and it's that content they wrote around winter and winter struggles and coats and all this stuff. I'm like. [00:16:00] It popped up in the answer engine and I'm like, okay. I research a bit more. They have good stories about it, and I'm supporting them q and a. Very, very important. Testimonials. Very, very important interviews. Very, very important. Super, super duper important with both the givers and the recipients, supporters of your nonprofit, but also the recipient recipients of very few nonprofits actually interview the people who support them. George Weiner: Like, why not like donors or be like, Hey, why did you support us? What was the, were the two things that moved you from Aware to care? Avinash Kaushik: Like for, for the i I Support Emergency, which is a Italian nonprofit like Ms. Frontiers and I would go on their website and speak a fiercely about why I absolutely love the work they do. Content, yeah. So first is text, then video. You gotta figure out how to use video a lot more. And most nonprofits are not agile in being able to use video. And the third [00:17:00] thing that I think will be a little bit of a struggle is to figure out how to use audio. 'cause audio also plays a very influential role. So for as you are planning your uh, uh, content calendar for the next year. Have the word multimodal. I'm sorry, it's profoundly unsexy, but put multimodal at the top, underneath it, say text, then say video, then audio, and start to fill those holes in. And if those people need ideas and example of how to use audio, they should just call you George. You are the king of podcasting and you can absolutely give them better advice than I could around how nonprofits could use audio. But the one big thing you have to think about is multimodality for next year George Weiner: that you know, is incredibly powerful. Underlying that, there's this nuance that I really want to make sure that we understand, which is the fact that the type of content is uniquely different. It's not like there's a hunger organization listening right now. It's not 10 facts about hunger during the winter. [00:18:00] Uh, days of being able to be an information resource that would then bring people in and then bring them down your, you know, your path. It's game over. If not now, soon. Absolutely. So how you are creating things that AI can't create and that's why you, according to whom, is what I like to think about. Like, you're gonna say something, you're gonna write something according to whom? Is it the CEO? Is it the stakeholder? Is it the donor? And if you can put a attribution there, suddenly the AI can't just lift and shift it. It has to take that as a block and be like, no, it was attributed here. This is the organization. Is that about right? Or like first, first party data, right? Avinash Kaushik: I'll, I'll add one more, one more. Uh, I'll give a proper definition. So, the fir i I made 11 recommendations last night in the newsletter. The very first one is focus on creating AI resistant content. So what, what does that mean? AI resistant means, uh, any one of us from nonprofits could [00:19:00] open chat, GPT type in a few queries and chat. GD PT can write our next nonprofit newsletter. It could write the next page for our donation. It could create the damn page for our donation, right? Remember, AI can create way more content than you can, but if you can use AI to create content, 67 million other nonprofits are doing the same thing. So what you have to do is figure out how to build AI resistant content, and my definition is very simple. George, what is AI resistance? It's content of genuine novelty. So to tie back to your recommendation, your CEO of a nonprofit that you just recommended, the attribution to George. Your CEO has a unique voice, a unique experience. The AI hasn't learned what makes your CEO your frontline staff solving problems. You are a person who went and gave a speech at the United Nations on behalf of your nonprofit. Whatever you are [00:20:00] doing is very special, and what you have to figure out is how to get out of the AI slop. You have to get out of all the things that AI can automatically type. Figure out if your content meets this very simple, standard, genuine novelty and depth 'cause it's the one thing AI isn't good at. That's how you rank higher. And not only will will it, will it rank you, but to make another point you made, George, it's gonna just lift, blanc it out there and attribute credit to you. Boom. But if you're not genuine, novelty and depth. Thousand other nonprofits are using AI to generate text and video. Could George Weiner: you just, could you just quit whatever you're doing and start a school instead? I seriously can't say it enough that your point about AI slop is terrifying me because I see it. We've built an AI tool and the subtle lesson here is that think about how quickly this AI was able to output that newsletter. Generic old school blog post and if this tool can do it, which [00:21:00] by the way is built on your local data set, we have the rag, which doesn't pause for a second and realize if this AI can make it, some other AI is going to be able to reproduce it. So how are you bringing the human back into this? And it's a style of writing and a style of strategic thinking that please just start a school and like help every single college kid leaving that just GPT their way through a degree. Didn't freaking get, Avinash Kaushik: so it's very, very important to make sure. Content is of genuine novelty and depth because it cannot be replicated by the ai. And by the way, this, by the way, George, it sounds really high, but honestly to, to use your point, if you're a CEO of a nonprofit, you are in it for something that speaks to you. You're in it. Because ai, I mean nonprofit is not your path to becoming the next Bill Gates, you're doing it because you just have this hair. Whoa, spoiler alert. No, I'm sorry. [00:22:00] Maybe, maybe that is. I, I didn't, I didn't mean any negative emotion there, but No, I love it. It's all, it's like a, it's like a sense of passion you are bringing. There's something that speaks to you. Just put that on paper, put that on video, put that on audio, because that is what makes you unique. And the collection of those stories of genuine depth and novelty will make your nonprofit unique and stand out when people are looking for answers. George Weiner: So I have to point to the next elephant in the room here, which is measurement. Yes. Yes. Right now, somebody is talking about human made machine. Someone's talking about whole whale. Someone's talking about your nonprofit having a discussion in an answer engine somewhere. Yes. And I have no idea. How do I go about understanding measurement in this new game? Avinash Kaushik: I have. I have two recommendations. For nonprofits, I would recommend a tool called Tracker ai, TRA, KKR [00:23:00] ai, and it has a free version, that's why I'm recommending it. Some of the many of these tools are paid tools, but with Tracker, do ai. It allows you to identify your website, URL, et cetera, et cetera, and it'll give you some really wonderful and fantastic, helpful report It. Tracker helps you understand prompt tracking, which is what are other people writing about you when they're seeking? You? Think of this, George, as your old webmaster tools. What keywords are people using to search? Except you can get the prompts that people are using to get a more robust understanding. It also monitors your brand's visibility. How often are you showing up and how often is your competitor showing up, et cetera, et cetera. And then he does that across multiple search engines. So you can say, oh, I'm actually pretty strong in OpenAI for some reason, and I'm not that strong in Gemini. Or, you know what, I have like the highest rating in cloud, but I don't have it in OpenAI. And this begins to help you understand where your current content strategy is working and where it is not [00:24:00] working. So that's your brand visibility. And the third thing that you get from Tracker is active sentiment tracking. This is the scary part because remember, you and I were both worried about what other people saying about us. So this, this are very helpful that we can go out and see what it is. What is the sentiment around our nonprofit that is coming across in, um, in these lms? So Tracker ai, it have a free and a paid version. So I would, I would recommend using it for these three purposes. If, if you have funding to invest in a tool. Then there's a tool called Ever Tool, E-V-E-R-T-U-N-E Ever. Tune is a paid tool. It's extremely sophisticated and robust, and they do brand monitoring, site audit, content strategy, consumer preference report, ai, brand index, just the. Step and breadth of metrics that they provide is quite extensive, but, but it is a paid tool. It does cost money. It's not actually crazy expensive, but uh, I know I have worked with them before, so full disclosure [00:25:00] and having evaluated lots of different tools, I have sort of settled on those two. If it's a enterprise type client I'm working with, then I'll use Evert Tune if I am working with a nonprofit or some of my personal stuff. I'll use Tracker AI because it's good enough for a person that is, uh, smaller in size and revenue, et cetera. So those two tools, so we have new metrics coming, uh, from these tools. They help us understand the kind of things we use webmaster tools for in the past. Then your other thing you will want to track very, very closely is using Google Analytics or some other tool on your website. You are able to currently track your, uh, organic traffic and if you're taking advantage of paid ads, uh, through a grant program on Google, which, uh, provides free paid search credits to nonprofits. Then you're tracking your page search traffic to continue to track that track trends, patterns over time. But now you will begin to see in your referrals report, in your referrals report, you're gonna begin to seeing open [00:26:00] ai. You're gonna begin to see these new answer engines. And while you don't know the keywords that are sending this traffic and so on and so forth, it is important to keep track of the traffic because of two important reasons. One, one, you want to know how to highly prioritize. AEO. That's one reason. But the other reason I found George is syn is so freaking hard to rank in an answer engine. When people do come to my websites from Answer engine, the businesses I work with that is very high intent person, they tend to be very, very valuable because they gave the answer engine a very complex question to answer the answers. Engine said you. The right answer for it. So when I show up, I'm ready to buy, I'm ready to donate. I'm ready to do the action that I was looking for. So the percent of people who are coming from answer engines to your nonprofit carry significantly higher intention, and coming from Google, who also carry [00:27:00] intent. But this man, you stood out in an answer engine, you're a gift from God. Person coming thinks you're very important and is likely to engage in some sort of business with you. So I, even if it's like a hundred people, I care a lot about those a hundred people, even if it's not 10,000 at the moment. Does that make sense George? George Weiner: It does, and I think, I'm glad you pointed to, you know, the, the good old Google Analytics. I'm like, it has to be a way, and I, I think. I gave maximum effort to this problem inside of Google Analytics, and I'm still frustrated that search console is not showing me, and it's just blending it all together into one big soup. But. I want you to poke a hole in this thinking or say yes or no. You can create an AI channel, an AEO channel cluster together, and we have a guide on that cluster together. All of those types of referral traffic, as you mentioned, right from there. I actually know thanks to CloudFlare, the ratios of the amount of scrapes versus the actual clicks sent [00:28:00] for roughly 20, 30% of. Traffic globally. So is it fair to say I could assume like a 2% clickthrough or a 1% clickthrough, or even worse in some cases based on that referral and then reverse engineer, basically divide those clicks by the clickthrough rate and essentially get a rough share of voice metric on that platform? Yeah. Avinash Kaushik: So, so for, um, kind of, kind of at the moment, the problem is that unlike Google giving us some decent amount of data through webmaster tools. None of these LLMs are giving us any data. As a business owner, none of them are giving us any data. So we're relying on third parties like Tracker. We're relying on third parties like Evert Tune. You understand? How often are we showing up so we could get a damn click through, right? Right. We don't quite have that for now. So the AI Brand Index in Evert Tune comes the closest. Giving you some information we could use in the, so your thinking is absolutely right. Your recommendation is ly, right? Even if you can just get the number of clicks, even if you're tracking them very [00:29:00] carefully, it's very important. Please do exactly what you said. Make the channel, it's really important. But don't, don't read too much into the click-through rate bits, because we're missing the. We're missing a very important piece of information. Now remember when Google first came out, we didn't have tons of data. Um, and that's okay. These LLMs Pro probably will realize over time if they get into the advertising business that it's nice to give data out to other people, and so we might get more data. Until then, we are relying on these third parties that are hacking these tools to find us some data. So we can use it to understand, uh, some of the things we readily understand about keywords and things today related to Google. So we, we sadly don't have as much visibility today as we would like to have. George Weiner: Yeah. We really don't. Alright. I have, have a segment that I just invented. Just for you called Avanade's War Corner. And in Avanade's War Corner, I noticed that you go to war on various concepts, which I love because it brings energy and attention to [00:30:00] frankly data and finding answers in there. So if you'll humor me in our war corner, I wanna to go through some, some classic, classic avan. Um, all right, so can you talk to me a little bit about vanity metrics, because I think they are in play. Every day. Avinash Kaushik: Absolutely. No, no, no. Across the board, I think in whatever we do. So, so actually I'll, I'll, I'll do three. You know, so there's vanity metrics, activity metrics and outcome metrics. So basically everything goes into these three buckets essentially. So vanity metrics are, are the ones that are very easy to find, but them moving up and down has nothing to do with the number of donations you're gonna get as a nonprofit. They're just there to ease our ego. So, for example. Let's say we are a nonprofit and we run some display ads, so measure the number of impressions that were delivered for our display ad. That's a vanity metric. It doesn't tell you anything. You could have billions of impressions. You could have 10 impressions, doesn't matter, but it is easily [00:31:00] available. The count is easily available, so we report it. Now, what matters? What matters are, did anybody engage with the ad? What were the percent of people who hovered on the ad? What were the number of people who clicked on the ad activity metrics? Activity metrics are a little more useful than vanity metrics, but what does it matter for you as a non nonprofit? The number of donations you received in the last 24 hours. That's an outcome metric. Vanity activity outcome. Focus on activity to diagnose how well our campaigns or efforts are doing in marketing. Focus on outcomes to understand if we're gonna stay in business or not. Sorry, dramatic. The vanity metrics. Chasing is just like good for ego. Number of likes is a very famous one. The number of followers on a social paia, a very famous one. Number of emails sent is another favorite one. There's like a whole host of vanity metrics that are very easy to get. I cannot emphasize this enough, but when you unpack and or do meta-analysis of [00:32:00] relationship between vanity metrics and outcomes, there's a relationship between them. So we always advise people that. Start by looking at activity metrics to help you understand the user's behavior, and then move to understanding outcome metrics because they are the reason you'll thrive. You will get more donations or you will figure out what are the things that drive more donations. Otherwise, what you end up doing is saying. If I post provocative stuff on Facebook, I get more likes. Is that what you really wanna be doing? But if your nonprofit says, get me more likes, pretty soon, there's like a naked person on Facebook that gets a lot of likes, but it's corrupting. Yeah. So I would go with cute George Weiner: cat, I would say, you know, you, you get the generic cute cat. But yeah, same idea. The Internet's built on cats Avinash Kaushik: and yes, so, so that's why I, I actively recommend people stay away from vanity metrics. George Weiner: Yeah. Next up in War Corner, the last click [00:33:00] fallacy, right? The overweighting of this last moment of purchase, or as you'd maybe say in the do column of the See, think, do care. Avinash Kaushik: Yes. George Weiner: Yes. Avinash Kaushik: So when the, when the, when we all started to get Google Analytics, we got Adobe Analytics web trends, remember them, we all wanted to know like what drove the conversion. Mm-hmm. I got this donation for a hundred dollars. I got a donation for a hundred thousand dollars. What drove the conversion. And so what lo logically people would just say is, oh, where did this person come from? And I say, oh, the person came from Google. Google drove this conversion. Yeah, his last click analysis just before the conversion. Where did the person come from? Let's give them credit. But the reality is it turns out that if you look at consumer behavior, you look at days to donation, visits to donation. Those are two metrics available in Google. It turns out that people visit multiple times before [00:34:00] they make a donation. They may have come through email, their interest might have been triggered through your email. Then they suddenly remembered, oh yeah, yeah, I wanted to go to the nonprofit and donate something. This is Google, you. And then Google helps them find you and they come through. Now, who do you give credit Email or the Google, right? And what if you came 5, 7, 8, 10 times? So the last click fallacy is that it doesn't allow you to see the full consumer journey. It gives credit to whoever was the last person who sent you this, who introduced this person to your website. And so very soon we move to looking at what we call MTI, Multi-Touch Attribution, which is a free solution built into Google. So you just go to your multichannel funnel reports and it will help you understand that. One, uh, 150 people came from email. Then they came from Google. Then there was a gap of nine days, and they came back from Facebook and then they [00:35:00] converted. And what is happening is you're beginning to understand the consumer journey. If you understand the consumer journey better, we can come with better marketing. Otherwise, you would've said, oh, close shop. We don't need as many marketing people. We'll just buy ads on Google. We'll just do SEO. We're done. Oh, now you realize there's a more complex behavior happening in the consumer. They need to solve for email. You solve for Google, you need to solve Facebook. In my hypothetical example, so I, I'm very actively recommend people look at the built-in free MTA reports inside the Google nalytics. Understand the path flow that is happening to drive donations and then undertake activities that are showing up more often in the path, and do fewer of those things that are showing up less in the path. George Weiner: Bring these up because they have been waiting on my mind in the land of AEO. And by the way, we're not done with war. The war corner segment. There's more war there's, but there's more, more than time. But with both of these metrics where AEO, if I'm putting these glasses back on, comes [00:36:00] into play, is. Look, we're saying goodbye to frankly, what was probably somewhat of a vanity metric with regard to organic traffic coming in on that 10 facts about cube cats. You know, like, was that really how we were like hanging our hat at night, being like. Job done. I think there's very much that in play. And then I'm a little concerned that we just told everyone to go create an AEO channel on their Google Analytics and they're gonna come in here. Avinash told me that those people are buyers. They're immediately gonna come and buy, and why aren't they converting? What is going on here? Can you actually maybe couch that last click with the AI channel inbound? Like should I expect that to be like 10 x the amount of conversions? Avinash Kaushik: All we can say is it's, it's going to be people with high intention. And so with the businesses that I'm working with, what we are finding is that the conversion rates are higher. Mm. This game is too early to establish any kind of sense of if anybody has standards for AEO, they're smoking crack. Like the [00:37:00] game is simply too early. So what we I'm noticing is that in some cases, if the average conversion rate is two point half percent, the AEO traffic is converting at three, three point half. In two or three cases, it's converting at six, seven and a half. But there is not enough stability in the data. All of this is new. There's not enough stability in the data to say, Hey, definitely you can expect it to be double or 10% more or 50% more. We, we have no idea this early stage of the game, but, but George, if we were doing this again in a year, year and a half, I think we'll have a lot more data and we'll be able to come up with some kind of standards for, for now, what's important to understand is, first thing is you're not gonna rank in an answer engine. You just won't. If you do rank in an answer engine, you fought really hard for it. The person decided, oh my God, I really like this. Just just think of the user behavior and say, this person is really high intent because somehow [00:38:00] you showed up and somehow they found you and came to you. Chances are they're caring. Very high intent. George Weiner: Yeah. They just left a conversation with a super intelligent like entity to come to your freaking 2001 website, HTML CSS rendered silliness. Avinash Kaushik: Whatever it is, it could be the iffiest thing in the world, but they, they found me and they came to you and they decided that in the answer engine, they like you as the answer the most. And, and it took that to get there. And so all, all, all is I'm finding in the data is that they carry higher intent and that that higher intent converts into higher conversion rates, higher donations, as to is it gonna be five 10 x higher? It's unclear at the moment, but remember, the other reason you should care about it is. Every single day. As more people move away from Google search engines to answer engines, you're losing a ton of traffic. If somebody new showing up, treat them with, respect them with love. Treat them with [00:39:00] care because they're very precious. Just lost a hundred. Check the landing George Weiner: pages. 'cause you may be surprised where your front door is when complexity is bringing them to you, and it's not where you spent all of your design effort on the homepage. Spoiler. That's exactly Avinash Kaushik: right. No. Exactly. In fact, uh, the doping deeper into your websites is becoming even more prevalent with answer engines. Mm-hmm. Um, uh, than it used to be with search engines. The search always tried to get you the, the top things. There's still a lot of diversity. Your homepage likely is still only 30% of your traffic. Everybody else is landing on other homepage or as you call them, landing pages. So it's really, really important to look beyond your homepage. I mean, it was true yesterday. It's even truer today. George Weiner: Yeah, my hunch and what I'm starting to see in our data is that it is also much higher on the assisted conversion like it is. Yes. Yes, it is. Like if you have come to us from there, we are going to be seeing you again. That's right. That's right. More likely than others. It over indexes consistently for us there. Avinash Kaushik: [00:40:00] Yes. Again, it ties back to the person has higher intent, so if they didn't convert in that lab first session, their higher intent is gonna bring them back to you. So you are absolutely right about the data that you're seeing. George Weiner: Um, alright. War corner, the 10 90 rule. Can you unpack this and then maybe apply it to somebody who thinks that their like AI strategy is done? 'cause they spend $20 or $200 a month on some tool and then like, call it a day. 'cause they did ai. Avinash Kaushik: Yes, yes. No, it's, it's good. I, I developed it in context of analytics. When I was at my, uh, job at Intuit, I used to, I was at Intuit, senior director for research and analytics. And one of the things I found is people would consistently spend lots of money on tools in that time, web analytics tools, research tools, et cetera. And, uh, so they're spending a contract of a few hundred thousand dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then they give it to a fresh graduate to find insights. [00:41:00] I was like, wait, wait, wait. So you took this $300,000 thing and gave it to somebody. You're paying $45,000 a year. Who is young in their career, young in their career, and expecting them to make you tons of money using this tool? It's not the tool, it's the human. And so that's why I developed the the 10 90 rule, which is that if you have a, if you have a hundred dollars to invest in making smarter decisions, invest $10 in the tool, $90 in the human. We all have access to so much data, so much complexity. The world is changing so fast that it is the human that is going to figure out how to make sense of these insights rather than the tool magically spewing and understanding your business enough to tell you exactly what to do. So that, that's sort of where the 10 90 rule came from. Now, sort of we are in this, in this, um, this is very good for nonprofits by the way. So we're in this era. Where On the 90 side? No. So the 10, look, don't spend insane money on tools that is just silly. So don't do that. Now the 90, let's talk about the [00:42:00] 90. Up until two years ago, I had to spell all of the 90 on what I now call organic humans. You George Weiner: glasses wearing humans, huh? Avinash Kaushik: The development of LLM means that every single nonprofit in the world has access to roughly a third year bachelor's degree student. Like a really smart intern. For free. For free. In fact, in some instances, for some nonprofits, let's say I I just reading about this nonprofit that is cleaning up plastics in the ocean for this particular nonprofit, they have access to a p HT level environmentalist using the latest Chad GP PT 4.5, like PhD level. So the little caveat I'm beginning to put in the 10 90 rule is on the 90. You give the 90 to the human and for free. Get the human, a very smart Bachelor's student by using LLMs in some instances. Get [00:43:00] for free a very smart TH using the LLMs. So the LLMs have now to be incorporated into your research, into your analysis, into building a next dashboard, into building a next website, into building your next mobile game into whatever the hell you're doing for free. You can get that so you have your organic human. Less the synthetic human for free. Both of those are in the 90 and, and for nonprofit, so, so in my work at at Coach and Kate Spade. I have access now to a couple of interns who do free work for me, well for 20 minor $20 a month because I have to pay for the plus version of G bt. So the intern costs $20 a month, but I have access to this syn synthetic human who can do a whole lot of work for me for $20 a month in my case, but it could also do it for free for you. Don't forget synthetic humans. You no longer have to rely only on the organic humans to do the 90 part. You would be stunned. Upload [00:44:00] your latest, actually take last year's worth of donations, where they came from and all this data from you. Have a spreadsheet lying around. Dump it into chat. GPT, I'll ask it to analyze it. Help you find where most donations came from, and visualize trends to present to board of directors. It will blow your mind how good it is at do it with Gemini. I'm not biased, I'm just seeing chat. GPD 'cause everybody knows it so much Better try it with mistrial a, a small LLM from France. So I, I wanna emphasize that what has changed over the last year is the ability for us to compliment our organic humans with these synthetic entities. Sometimes I say synthetic humans, but you get the point. George Weiner: Yeah. I think, you know, definitely dump that spreadsheet in. Pull out the PII real quick, just, you know, make me feel better as, you know, the, the person who's gonna be promoting this to everybody, but also, you know, sort of. With that. I want to make it clear too, that like actually inside of Gemini, like Google for nonprofits has opened up access to Gemini for free is not a per user, per whatever. You have that [00:45:00] you have notebook, LLM, and these. Are sitting in their backyards for free every day and it's like a user to lose it. 'cause you have a certain amount of intelligence tokens a day. Can you, I just like wanna climb like the tallest tree out here and just start yelling from a high building about this. Make the case of why a nonprofit should be leveraging this free like PhD student that is sitting with their hands underneath their butts, doing nothing for them right now. Avinash Kaushik: No, it is such a shame. By the way, I cannot add to your recommendation in using your Gemini Pro account if it's free, on top of, uh, all the benefits you can get. Gemini Pro also comes with restrictions around their ability to use your data. They won't, uh, their ability to put your data anywhere. Gemini free versus Gemini Pro is a very protected environment. Enterprise version. So more, more security, more privacy, et cetera. That's a great benefit. And by the way, as you said, George, they can get it for free. So, um, the, the, the, the posture you should adopt is what big companies are doing, [00:46:00] which is anytime there is a job to be done, the first question you, you should ask is, can I make the, can an AI do the job? You don't say, oh, let me send it to George. Let me email Simon, let me email Sarah. No, no, no. The first thing that should hit your head is. I do the job because most of the time for, again, remember, third year bachelor's degree, student type, type experience and intelligence, um, AI can do it better than any human. So your instincts to be, let me outsource that kind of work so I can free up George's cycles for the harder problems that the AI cannot solve. And by the way, you can do many things. For example, you got a grant and now Meta allows you to run X number of ads for free. Your first thing, single it. What kind of ad should I create? Go type in your nonprofit, tell it the kind of things you're doing. Tell it. Tell it the donations you want, tell it the size, donation, want. Let it create the first 10 ads for you for free. And then you pick the one you like. And even if you have an internal [00:47:00] designer who makes ads, they'll start with ideas rather than from scratch. It's just one small example. Or you wanna figure out. You know, my email program is stuck. I'm not getting yield rates for donations. The thing I want click the button that called that is called deep research or thinking in the LL. Click one of those two buttons and then say, I'm really struggling. I'm at wits end. I've tried all these things. Write all the detail. Write all the detail about what you've tried and now working. Can you please give me three new ideas that have worked for nonprofits who are working in water conservation? Hmm. This would've taken a human like a few days to do. You'll have an answer in under 90 seconds. I just give two simple use cases where we can use these synthetic entities to send us, do the work for us. So the default posture in nonprofits should be, look, we're resource scrapped anyway. Why not use a free bachelor's degree student, or in some case a free PhD student to do the job, or at least get us started on a job. So just spending 10 [00:48:00] hours on it. We only spend the last two hours. The entity entity does the first date, and that is super attractive. I use it every single day in, in one of my browsers. I have three traps open permanently. I've got Claude, I've got Mistrial, I've got Charge GPT. They are doing jobs for me all day long. Like all day long. They're working for me. $20 each. George Weiner: Yeah, it's an, it, it, it's truly, it's an embarrassment of riches, but also getting back to the, uh, the 10 90 is, it's still sitting there. If you haven't brought that capacity building to the person on how to prompt how to play that game of linguistic tennis with these tools, right. They're still just a hammer on a. Avinash Kaushik: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Or, or in your case, you, you have access to Gemini for nonprofits. It's a fantastic tool. It's like a really nice card that could take you different places you insist on cycling everywhere. It's, it's okay cycle once in a while for health reasons. Otherwise, just take the car, it's free. George Weiner: Ha, you've [00:49:00] been so generous with your time. Uh, I do have one more quick war. If you, if you have, have a minute, uh, your war on funnels, and maybe this is not. Fully fair. And I am like, I hear you yelling at me every time I'm showing our marketing funnel. And I'm like, yeah, but I also have have a circle over here. Can you, can you unpack your war on funnels and maybe bring us through, see, think, do, care and in the land of ai? Avinash Kaushik: Yeah. Okay. So the marketing funnel is very old. It's been around for a very long time, and once I, I sort of started working at Google, access to lots more consumer research, lots more consumer behavior. Like 20 years ago, I began to understand that there's no such thing as funnel. So what does the funnel say? The funnel says there's a group of people running around the world, they're not aware of your brand. Find them, scream at them, spray and pray advertising at them, make them aware, and then somehow magically find the exact same people again and shut them down the fricking funnel and make them consider your product.[00:50:00] And now that they're considering, find them again, exactly the same people, and then shove them one more time. Move their purchase index and then drag them to your website. The thing is this linearity that there's no evidence in the universe that this linearity exists. For example, uh, I'm going on a, I like long bike rides, um, and I just got thirsty. I picked up the first brand. I could see a water. No awareness, no consideration, no purchase in debt. I just need water. A lot of people will buy your brand because you happen to be the cheapest. I don't give a crap about anything else, right? So, um, uh, uh, the other thing to understand is, uh, one of the brands I adore and have lots of is the brand. Patagonia. I love Patagonia. I, I don't use the word love for I think any other brand. I love Patagonia, right? For Patagonia. I'm always in the awareness stage because I always want these incredible stories that brand ambassadors tell about how they're helping the environment. [00:51:00] I have more Patagonia products than I should have. I'm already customer. I'm always open to new considerations of Patagonia products, new innovations they're bringing, and then once in a while, I'm always in need to buy a Patagonia product. I'm evaluating them. So this idea that the human is in one of these stages and your job is to shove them down, the funnel is just fatally flawed, no evidence for it. Instead, what you want to do is what is Ash's intent at the moment? He would like environmental stories about how we're improving planet earth. Patagonia will say, I wanna make him aware of my environmental stories, but if they only thought of marketing and selling, they wouldn't put me in the awareness because I'm already a customer who buys lots of stuff from already, right? Or sometimes I'm like, oh, I'm, I'm heading over to London next week. Um, I need a thing, jacket. So yeah, consideration show up even though I'm your customer. So this seating do care is a framework that [00:52:00] says, rather than shoving people down things that don't exist and wasting your money, your marketing should be able to discern any human's intent and then be able to respond with a piece of content. Sometimes that piece of content in an is an ad. Sometimes it's a webpage, sometimes it's an email. Sometimes it's a video. Sometimes it's a podcast. This idea of understanding intent is the bedrock on which seat do care is built about, and it creates fully customer-centric marketing. It is harder to do because intent is harder to infer, but if you wanna build a competitive advantage for yourself. Intent is the magic. George Weiner: Well, I think that's a, a great point to, to end on. And again, so generous with, uh, you know, all the work you do and also supporting nonprofits in the many ways that you do. And I'm, uh, always, always watching and seeing what I'm missing when, um, when a new, uh, AKA's Razor and Newsletter come out. So any final sign off [00:53:00] here on how do people find you? How do people help you? Let's hear it. Avinash Kaushik: You can just Google or answer Engine Me. It's, I'm not hard. I hard to find, but if you're a nonprofit, you can sign up for my newsletter, TMAI marketing analytics newsletter. Um, there's a free one and a paid one, so you can just sign up for the free one. It's a newsletter that comes out every five weeks. It's completely free, no strings or anything. And that way I'll be happy to share my stories around better marketing and analytics using the free newsletter for you so you can sign up for that. George Weiner: Brilliant. Well, thank you so much, Avan. And maybe, maybe we'll have to take you up on that offer to talk sometime next year and see, uh, if maybe we're, we're all just sort of, uh, hanging out with synthetic humans nonstop. Thank you so much. It was fun, George. [00:54:00]

Officials say they're concerned about possible retaliation after a targeted shooting at a Brooklyn hookah bar left three dead and ten wounded early Sunday. Meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams is down a board member at the MTA as hearings on new fare and toll hikes begin this week. Plus, Mount Sinai Hospital and the Real Dads Network are providing free heart health screenings for Black men to address disproportionately high rates of undiagnosed disease.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James is among dozens of state AGs urging Instagram to protect users' data after the platform released a map feature that allows users to share their real-time location. Meanwhile, the MTA is increasing train service for the start of the U.S Open Monday. Also, Mamdani canvassers return to the streets ahead of the general election. Plus, state lawmakers warn Governor Hochul about looming fiscal trouble. Finally GrowNYC's Amelia Tarpey shares how to make the most of peak eggplant season.

The New York City Council is expected to vote this Thursday on a pair of bills aimed at expanding protections for transgender patients in city hospitals. Meanwhile, state Attorney General Letitia James is warning fans about a rise in fake Bad Bunny ticket sales ahead of the singer's upcoming shows. Also, city officials say another public school student is in immigration detention after being taken into custody at an immigration hearing. Plus, in this week's politics segment, more on the fiery New York City Mayoral Race.

Elizabeth Kim, Gothamist and WNYC reporter, talks about the latest news from the campaign trail, including Andrew Cuomo's social media attack on Zohran Mamdani over his rent-stabilized apartment.

New York state officials say they dropped millions in fines against the developer of the long-delayed Atlantic Yards affordable housing project after the company threatened legal action. Meanwhile, pandemic-era subway cleaners will receive $3 million in backpay following a city comptroller lawsuit against the MTA. Plus, Mets first baseman Pete Alonso makes history as the franchise's all-time home run leader.

On the heels of his February appointment, Metro-North Railroad President Justin Vonashek sits down with Paul Comfort to break down a banner year for the MTA's northern commuter powerhouse. From 98 percent on-time performance to new “Super-Express” trains that shave up to 50 minutes a day off the New Haven run, Justin walks through the big wins, bigger capital program, and the three metrics he believes define rail's future in North America: reliability, frequency, and trip time.In This EpisodeThe 98% standard — how Metro-North elevated on-time performance across 230k daily tripsSuper-Express strategy — six AM/PM trains, revamped signaling, and a 90-minute New Haven–GCT targetGrand Central Terminal as a “temple to transit”Their nearly $8 billion capital plan (2025-29) — dual-mode Siemens Chargers, battery-electric locos, signal renewals, ADA station upgrades, and the Grand Central arteryPenn Station Access for Bronx riders and reverse-commute opportunities into Connecticut Resources & LinksMetro-North Railroad — https://new.mta.info/agency/metro-north-railroadMTA Capital Program 2025-2029 overview https://future.mta.info/capitalplan/Transit Unplugged episode archive — https://transitunplugged.comSubscribe & Stay ConnectedLike what you hear? Subscribe to Transit Unplugged on your favorite podcast app, or sign up for the newsletter at TransitUnplugged.com for weekly field notes from across the industry.Podcast CreditsTransit Unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo, passionate about moving the world's people.Creator, Host & Producer — Paul ComfortExecutive Producer — Julie GatesProducer & Newsletter Editor — Chris O'KeefeAssociate Producer — Cyndi RaskinPodcast Intern — Desmond Gates Special thanks to:Brand Design — Tina OlagundoyeSocial Media — Tatyana MechkarovaGot a question or comment? Email us at info@transitunplugged.comDisclaimerThe views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Modaxo Inc., its affiliates or subsidiaries, or any entities they represent. This production belongs to Modaxo and may contain information subject to trademark, copyright, or other intellectual-property rights and restrictions. This production provides general information and should not be relied on as legal advice or opinion. Modaxo specifically disclaims all warranties, express or implied, and will not be liable for any losses, claims, or damages arising from the use of this presentation, from any material contained in it, or from any action or decision taken in response to it

Should the bus be free? That's the question everyone following the New York City mayoral race is asking, with Democratic primary winner Zohran Mamdani promising to focus on fast, free buses if he's elected to City Hall. Eliminating bus fares is a big idea, but is it a good one? Like a lot of things in politics, there's no simple answer. That's why we asked Yonah Freemark — a researcher in cities, land use, and transportation at the Urban Institute — to walk us through the pros and cons of making the bus free for everyone. Whatever you think about it, the good news is that everyone is talking about bus riders. That's a win in our book. Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive exclusive access to ad-free versions of regular episodes, Patreon-only bonus content, Discord access, invitations to live events, merch discounts and free stickers! ***Our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, will be published on October 21, 2025 by Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Pre-order now.*** Purchase tickets for our Life After Cars publication party and live show at The Bell House in Brooklyn on October 28th. And find us in other cities for our book tour including San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, and more. The War on Cars is produced with the generous support of the Helen & William Mazer Foundation. This episode was sponsored by Cleverhood and Upway. Listen for the latest discount codes. Check out Mamala Food by Dani Finkel. (She designed our logo!) SHOW NOTES Learn more about Yonah Freemark and his work at the Urban Institute. Watch Zohran Mamdani on The Breakfast Club.  Charlie Komanoff: Free buses would mean faster buses and more riders. (Streetsblog) Andrew Cuomo has a less ambitious free bus plan. (Gothamist) Boston has free buses on three routes. (Boston.gov) New York's free bus pilot. (MTA.info) This episode was recorded at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio. www.thewaroncars.org            

In this episode we speak with Renee McGregor -sports dietitian and author of the book, 'Fuel for Thought: A Practical Guide to Fueling for Your Adventures'. [powerpress] Renee McGregor is a leading sports dietitian, specialising in Eating Disorders, REDs, The Female Athlete, Athlete Health and Performance. She's worked with athletes across the globe, including supporting Olympic (London, 2012), Paralympic (Rio, 2016) and Commonwealth (Queensland, 2018) teams. We want to give listeners a head's up that we will be talking about eating disorders and REDs during this episode. What is REDs (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport) The basis of REDs is low energy availability, or insufficient energy in the body to allow for the work that the individual wants to do. Low energy availability comes with a cost to our sport but also is costly to all the biological processes in our body, including the brain, heart, lungs, hormonal, and digestive systems. When low energy availability is combined with under recovery (training and general life stresses can all contribute to this) it throws the body into REDs. Some people can have unintentional or accidental REDs where the person doesn't understand how much energy is required to maintain their biological functions and the training load. On the other hand, intentional REDs is a conscious decision to restrict intake or overtrain and usually involves some aspects of disordered eating and/or exercise dependency. [box] Sponsor Links Shokz- the industry leader and pioneer in open-ear headphone technology. Use code MTA for $10 off! MetPro.co -For the first time ever, MetPro is offering MTA listeners a full 30-day experience for just $95 with absolutely no strings attached! See what it's like working with your own metabolic coach. Limited to the first 30 people. AG1 Next Gen has new flavors: new flavors: Citrus, Tropical, and Berry. Get a free Welcome Kit with your first order which includes 5 AG1 Travel Packs, a shaker bottle, metal canister, and a bottle of AG Vitamin D3+K2. Fuel for Thought -book by Renee McGregor [/box]

In this episode we speak with Kitty Robinson, a lister to the podcast who shares what it's like to keep running through pregnancy, raising a large family, and surviving both brain and heart surgery. Kitty exemplifies the saying, “You can do hard things”! She's author of two books: 'Sometimes Courage' and 'The Runaway Housewives of the Appalachian Trail'. [powerpress] [box] Links Mentioned in This Episode Shokz- the industry leader and pioneer in open-ear headphone technology. Use code MTA for a discount! IQBAR brain and body-boosting bars, hydration mixes, and mushroom coffees. Their Ultimate Sampler Pack includes all three! Get 20% off plus FREE shipping. Just text “MTA” to 64000.. AG1 Next Gen -get a FREE bottle of AG D3K2, an AG1 Welcome Kit, AND 5 of the upgraded AG1 travel packs with your first order. Run the London Marathon in 2026 with Sports Tours International USA. They have guaranteed bibs! [/box]