Welcome to the Shared-Use Mobility Center’s weekly guide to the most impactful news, thought-provoking articles and innovative technologies that are shaping our transportation future. We believe in sharing information, just like sharing cars, bikes, and scooters, so if there’s anything additional you’d like to see, just drop us a line.
SUMC News and Announcements
New Learning Center Case Study: Public Transit During COVID-19 and the Road to Recovery
COVID-19 has changed public transit as we know it. In the wake of crippling budgets, harmful service cuts, and widespread fears, we have a new opportunity to change service to serve essential workers better and bring back riders. This new case study on the Learning Center explores how transit agencies have addressed the unique challenges posed by the pandemic, highlights how they are preparing for a resurgence of riders, gives short- and long-term recommendations based on lessons learned, and links to additional resources from other organizations.
Included:
Situation Overview
Who is still riding?
Transmission on Public Transit
Mitigating Risks and Recouping Ridership
Long-Term Takeaways
COVID-19 Resources on the Learning Center
Since April 8th, when we published the COVID-19 Crisis Impact on Transit & Shared Mobility case study in the MOD Learning Center, the Shared-Use Mobility Center has been documenting and analyzing how cities and transportation sectors are impacted by the COVID-19 virus. On April 23, we followed this case study with an update that focused on modes and emerging trends and another on May 19 that explored the pandemic’s impact on cities and transportation sectors. As a whole, the COVID-19 resources on the Learning Center are smart, functional guides for how to move forward towards sustainable, equitable transportation systems and be better prepared for pandemics in the future.
COVID-19 Resource Homepage
https://learn.sharedusemobilitycenter.org/casestudy/covid-19-resource-homepage/
COVID-19 Crisis Impact on Transit and Shared Mobility
Update 1
https://learn.sharedusemobilitycenter.org/casestudy/status-update-april-8-covid-19-crisis-impact-on-transit-shared-mobility/
COVID-19 Crisis Impact on Transit and Shared Mobility
Update 2
https://learn.sharedusemobilitycenter.org/casestudy/status-update-april-23-covid-19-crisis-impact-on-transit-shared-mobility/
COVID-19 Crisis Impact on Transit and Shared Mobility
Update 3
https://learn.sharedusemobilitycenter.org/casestudy/status-update-may-19-covid-19-crisis-impact-on-transit-shared-mobility/
Case Studies:
Pop-Up Mobility Paths and Open Streets due to COVID-19 Crisis
https://learn.sharedusemobilitycenter.org/casestudy/pop-up-mobility-paths-open-streets-due-to-covid-19-crisis/
Public Transit During COVID-19 and the Road to Recovery
https://learn.sharedusemobilitycenter.org/casestudy/public-transit-during-covid-19-and-the-road-to-recovery/
Watch and Learn from two MOD On-Ramp Webinars
On June 23 and June 30, the Shared-Use Mobility Center hosted the Mobility on-Demand (MOD) On-Ramp Lessons Learned Webinar Series. In MOD for Mobility Integration and MOD for First/Last-Mile Solutions, On-Ramp program participant agencies shared their experiences and lessons they learned developing mobility projects that addressed those goals.
The MOD On-Ramp program, a partnership between the Federal Transit Administration and the Shared-Use Mobility Center (SUMC), served as an incubator to turn innovative mobility-on-demand ideas into implementable projects. For 18 months, SUMC provided technical assistance to six transit agencies across the country to engage local partners and communities, develop business plans, provide technical assistance, and support other project-building strategies.
The Learning Center entry contains both the webinars and the presentations shared by the transit agencies.
Mobility Justice
Check out the latest Makeshift Mobility newsletter from mobility advocate and former Chief of Strategy and Innovation at Seattle DOT Benjie de la Peña that touches on the history of discrimination in transportation and how colonial imperialism in India enabled restrictive mobility choices for Dalits in the caste system.
Streetsblog Chicago’s Courtney Cobbs lays out a few strategies that could help make biking safer and more equitable in the city—and how we can use funds currently spent on police to address active transportation needs in the South side.
Budget-strained transit agencies spend a disproportionate amount of money on law enforcement, argue some transportation professionals and advocates, which adds to a culture of fear, racial abuse and harassment, not equitable transit service. Bloomberg CityLab explains.
LA Metro is looking at ways to reduce and replace armed police enforcement on public transit to combat racial profiling, with an eye on having social workers and mental health professionals or unarmed “transit ambassadors” as the initial safety response.
Ridehailing/Carsharing/Carpooling
In a big move, Amazon is acquiring autonomous vehicle startup Zoox for, reportedly, more than $1 billion and will continue “to help bring their vision of autonomous ridehailing to reality”.
Transportation leaders in Metro Vancouver are calling for the government in BC to create local greenhouse gas emission requirements for the ridehailing industry to help meet climate goals and promote clean mobility.
AAA’s GIG Car Share has officially launched in Seattle with 250 Toyota Priuses, bringing a new community-based program called Gig4Good to the city that will give free driving credits to organizations for local efforts such as food delivery.
St. Louis Metro Transit and ridehailing company Via have partnered up for a new on-demand microtransit service that will bring affordable mobility access to north and southwest St. Louis County.
Bikesharing and Micromobility
Micromobility company Bird has launched a new app called Bird Maps with Israeli navigation startup Trailze that will offer turn-by-turn navigation and trip-planning features to scooter riders in Paris and Tel Aviv.
How can corporations influence street safety and what does that mean for grassroots advocacy efforts in cities? Those are just some questions on people’s minds with Lime’s new advocacy initiative called Lime Action that aims to educate its scooter riders about street safety, roadway violence, environmental sustainability, and social and racial justice.
Scooter companies are gearing up to reintroduce dockless offerings to the streets of Atlanta once again as scooter permits, counting 8 different micromobility operators, go into effect this week through June 30, 2021.
Charge your EV then hop on a shared scooter, all through one app. Energy company Enel X and dockless mobility startup Bird are collaborating to offer the latter’s scooters through Enel X’s JuicePass EV charging app across six cities in Italy.
Transit
Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and Senator Ed Markey have unveiled the “Freedom to Move Act”, a proposed bill that would use competitive grant funding to help eliminate transit fares in cities all over the state while boosting service and infrastructure upgrades.
The Connecticut DOT will be the first agency in the country to run full-sized autonomous transit buses, with help from Robotic Research, New Flyer, and the Center for Transportation and Environment, and with $2 million in grant funding from the Federal Transit Administration.
Handing out sanitizer, marking off seats, mask checking, overall cleanliness. Paris transit riders are coming back—and other transit agencies can learn from their model.
“It is critical that we shift away from driving single-occupancy vehicles. But fixating on convincing people who drive to switch to transit is almost always done without making service more frequent or more reliable for existing riders.” Read more on why moving away from the “captive” vs “choice” categorization in transit ridership is necessary on Greater Greater Washington.
Technology
Google’s self-driving arm Waymo and Volvo will co-develop a self-driving electric vehicle for ridehailing as part of a newly announced partnership.
Hear the latest podcast episode from Micromobility.io that covers “micromobility, mobility as a service and the interplay between the two” with Transit app COO Jake Sion.
Chinese ridehail giant Didi Chuxing is trying out robotaxis, with backup safety staff behind the wheel, in Shanghai.
Curb management company Coord has chosen four US cities, Aspen, Nashville, Omaha, and West Palm Beach, to establish Smart Zone programs that will use mobility data and digital loading zones to reduce congestion and create safer street environments.
Sustainability
House Democrats have released a transformative plan that, if implemented, calls for the elimination of car pollution by 2035, achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and implementing environmental justice policy to help marginalized groups that have been historically affected by climate change.
New York is adding 23 more miles of open streets to give pedestrians and cyclists more space in the city and adding nine miles of temporary protected bike lanes to help with social distancing.
California’s Air Resources Board has passed a new mandate that all commercial trucks and vans sold in the state must be zero-emission by 2045 in a bold move to reduce transportation pollution.
Urban heat issues in cities, which are made even more apparent with climate change, cause severe and uncertain heat waves that can harm public health and economic productivity, and create a strain on critical infrastructure in disadvantaged communities. Large swathes of parking space and car-centric design only make these matters worse.
Requests for Proposals, Inquiries, and Information
RFI: Expansion of the BlueLA EV Carsharing Program in Phase II
The Los Angeles Department of Transportation
Los Angeles, CA
Deadline: July 13, 2020
RFP: Paratransit and Flex Route Services
City of DeKalb
DeKalb, IA
Deadline: July 16, 2020
RFP: On-Demand Microtransit Software and Support
By Green Mountain Transit Authority
St. Albans, VT
Deadline: July 17, 2020
RFI: Creative Uses for Utilizing Existing Curbside Electric, Telecommunications, and Electric Vehicle Infrastructure
IndyGO
Indianapolis, IN
Deadline: August 14, 2020
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