It Turns Out Podcast: Rethinking Traffic with Michael Manville

From gridlock to smarter solutions, Professor Manville explains why understanding incentives is key to moving cities forward.

UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs

March 4, 2026

In the latest podcast episode of It Turns Out, host Kara Miller sat down with urban planning professor Michael Manville to tackle one of the most familiar frustrations in modern life: traffic congestion.

Rather than accepting traffic as an inevitable part of city living, Manville explains that traffic isn’t just a nuisance—it “robs you of time, health, and sometimes sanity.” What’s striking, he argues, is that many of the “obvious” solutions people and policymakers reach for, like widening freeways or building new transit lines, often fail to make traffic better in a meaningful way.

View the full article: Luskin.UCLA.edu