Follow the Data Podcast: The Intersection of COVID-19 and Transportation

A bus driver for the Detroit, Michigan city bus line DDOT poses for a portrait wearing a protective mask and gloves for protection during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Photo by Seth Herald/AFP via Getty Images

The unprecedented coronavirus crisis has affected Americans from coast to coast, with most living under stay-at-home orders. Yet millions of Americans have jobs they can’t video conference into – which is why the pandemic presents a unique challenge for city transportation departments, who need to keep people, goods, and services moving.

That’s why Bloomberg Philanthropies has partnered with the National Association of City Transportation Officials, or NACTO, to launch a transportation-focused online resource hub to give mayors real-time information around the transportation strategies cities across the U.S. are deploying during this evolving pandemic. The program is just one of the initiatives Bloomberg Philanthropies is taking on to help mayors confront COVID-19.

In this episode of our series highlighting Bloomberg Philanthropies’ COVID-19 response, Janette Sadik-Khan, a Principal at Bloomberg Associates and Chair of NACTO, sat down with Corinne Kisner, Executive Director of NACTO, and Mark de la Vergne, the Chief of Mobility Innovation for the City of Detroit.

They discuss how cities are continuing to run transit systems while keeping their own staffs safe, creative actions city transportation officials are taking in response to the pandemic, and how cities can provide safer, healthier transportation options for people going forward.

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For more from our coronavirus series on our podcast:

Our most recent episode, “Behind the Scenes of the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracking Map,” was borrowed from “Public Health on Call,” a new podcast created by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In this episode, we explore how the global COVID-19 tracking dashboard originated, what new features have been added, and how data can help individuals and officials make informed decisions for COVID-19 response.

In “Responding to a Pandemic Crisis,” Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the vice dean for public health practice at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health spoke to Dr. Jessica Leighton, who works on our Public Health program, to discuss crisis response and what makes COVID-19 different than other disease outbreaks.

In “How to Help Nonprofits Hit Hard by COVID-19,” Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, one of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ co-funders in the NYC COVID-19 Response & Impact Fund, speaks with Megan Sheekey, who leads Strategic Partnerships at Bloomberg Associates, about how the pandemic is affecting social service and cultural organizations in New York City.

Dr. Tom Frieden, the President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, sat down with Dr. Kelly Henning, who leads the Public Health program at Bloomberg Philanthropies and was the former Director of Epidemiology for the City of New York, to discuss the global response to COVID-19 in the first episode of our coronavirus series, “World War C – Us Against the Microbe.”