Jerom Theunissen Photography

Introduction

The built environment shapes public life and the behavior of people in every city. When people talk about cities, most describe how they interact with their environment and the livability of these spaces. Livability is broadly defined as the collection of factors that make up a city’s quality of life, including the built environment, economic prosperity, social stability and equity, educational opportunity, and cultural, entertainment and recreation possibilities. A crucial element to all of these factors is mobility, or the ability to move freely and easily from point A to B. From a very young age, I have been  curious about why cities develop around this concept, and how they subsequently procure transportation infrastructure that addresses each of their mobility problems. This has inspired me to pursue my studies in a manner that address these questions about cities through real-world experience.  

My undergraduate study has focused on developing skills to shape the built environment, particularly as it relates to transportation, within the scope of my majors: civil engineering and public policy.  Bringing these disciplines together has been the biggest, yet most rewarding, challenge in seeking to create a more livable built environment. I have gained knowledge and experience both in the classroom and in practice, but I am eager to explore how cities around the globe are tackling emerging mobility challenges while simultaneously creating attractive cities for people.

Urban Mobility Challenges

Transportation systems today are on track to become wholly inadequate in the near future. US transportation infrastructure is in disrepair, as stated by the American Society of Civil Engineers assigning a “D”and “D-” rating to roads and transit, respectively. Globally, it is estimated $94 trillion in infrastructure spending will be needed by 2040 to keep up with demand. Much of this demand stems from the growing population in our world’s urban areas. 

By 2030, 60 percent of the world’s population will be urban, up from about 52 percent in 2010. This will imply that nearly 3 billion more people will be living in cities, indicating a significant surge in the number of daily trips made within the urban periphery. What’s more, 64 percent of all travel miles in 2016 are made in cities, and the number is expected to triple by 2050. If the status quo is maintained, these phenomena will result in significant impacts on the environment and economic vitality of cities, in the forms of pollution and reduced productivity. 

However, mobility’s impact on people will be of most significance. By 2050, it is expected that the average time a commuter will spend in traffic congestion will be 106 hours per year, twice the current rate, thereby reducing the quality of life which is so vital to urban livability. Studies have shown that commute time is a significant factor in escaping poverty. Cities that fall behind will do more harm to its citizens and the environment, and lose their competitive edge. It will require interdisciplinary collaboration amongst governments, private industry, and academia to find solutions to these mobility problems.

A Path Forward

Transportation has been a very sleepy field for the last fifty years. “Old mobility,” a system rigidly organized around one mode of transportation, has been adequate but has seen worsening return on investment, especially in the United States. The mobility challenges raised recently have prompted urban planners, transportation engineers, and policy makers alike to rethink what city streets are about and who they are for. “New mobility,” prompts a different approach: the need to provide people with ample travel choices simultaneously with policies for congestion management. These provisions enhance flexible mobility in a rapidly changing urban environment.  

I was fortunate to experience the thrill of “new mobility” firsthand while studying abroad in Copenhagen. The city’s bottom-up, incremental approach has focused on an evaluation of both the physics and human factors of mobility. On physics, urban designers and engineers are primarily concerned with the physical aspects of urban infrastructure: network capacity, roadway alignments, and traffic operations. Human factors is equally, if not more important, to understanding the choices and preferences people have to get around. By testing and trying out solutions over the years, Copenhagen has shown that this human-centered approach can be applied to enhance livability in any city. Facing mobility challenges with technical details and psychology as factors that can influence design, infrastructure solutions that address a city’s mobility needs can be implemented.

Given the enormous demand urbanized areas will face in the coming century, there is a global race for cities to procure effective infrastructure and policies to achieve sustainable mobility. Cities are often ranked in terms of their livability, and increasingly by their mobility as well. Luckily, innovators are keen to share best practices and data, which can be spreadand applied to cities the world over.

My Plan of Study

The goal of my fellowship project is to tap into this global conversation to evaluate various transportation solutions’ impacts on urban livability. In particular, I would like to explore the strategic directions that innovators have undertaken to incorporate consumer preferences and behaviors via human-centered design. I will visit cities that both struggle and have success in their effort for enhanced mobility. For example, I am keen to learn how Stockholm implemented an electronic congestion pricing system that tolls vehicles entering the city center during weekday peak hours, or how Bogota developed the famous TransMilenio bus rapid-transit (BRT) system, or how Hangzhou became home to the world’s largest public bike-sharing programs (averaging 230,000 bicycles rented daily!). Cities that are having difficulty, such as Delhi, Nairobi, Bangkok, and Johannesburg, would also be visited to gain an understanding of what design and/or policy hurdles are preventing the development of integrated mobility systems. What's more, cities in developing countries have the opportunity to take the lessons from their developed predecessors, and immediately start down the path of “new mobility.”

To realize the power of a bottom-up and community-driven urban planning, it is necessary to examine the livability aspects of each city’s mobility schemes in the field. This will require a 1:1 observation of urban phenomena, out in each city, through data collection. Each city that I plan to visit will function as an urban laboratory for critical analysis to test and evaluate how mobility’s livability effects compare in theory versus reality. Along the way, I am keen to investigate how new business models, technology, and financing mechanisms, such as Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS), ridesharing, bikesharing, autonomous vehicles, congestion pricing, and public-private partnerships can make achieving “new mobility” possible. In all the cities I plan on visiting, I would like to meet with city officials, transportation engineers, urban planners, and community organizations to gain an understanding of how they each approach mobility. By learning from these people and experiencing different mobility systems firsthand, I look forward to simultaneously finding new problems that need to be fixed, while assembling a “toolbox” of solutions to enhance livability in cities around the globe.