Mobility + Social Agency: Embedding equity in mobile systems

Mobility + Social Agency

Embedding equity in mobile systems

Thursday, March 21, 2019, 6pm At: Center for Architecture 536 LaGuardia Place, NY 10012 www.CenterForArchitecture.org

Transportation + Infrastructure Committee

Mobility + Social Agency | Embedding equity in mobile systems.

Perspective

Embedding equity in mobile systems In the United States landmark legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 established legal rights to accommodation and access that have had a profound impact on both the experience of public life and overall thinking about personal mobility.

However, legal mandates have not always assured social change. Uneven power dynamics have continued to linger even as new biases emerge in reaction to shifting political and cultural patterns. From transit-starved neighborhoods to over-policing of pedestrians, drivers, and international travelers, systemic barriers to getting from one place to another remain persistent challenges, often with the most impact on marginalized and disadvantaged groups. Historically, Changes to inequitable mobilities have often been realized after accumulated social momentum triggers actions like strikes (e.g. LA bus riders union) or legislation (Title VI, class actions, etc.). Looking forward these crises could be circumvented by early engagement to assure that planning and design result in more inclusive and dignified mobile experiences. This program will examine equitability in mobile systems from both critical and practical perspectives to help illuminate ways that professional practice can move from stances of baseline compliance with equity mandates to more proactive approaches that support just and fair mobilities.

1.

Mobility + Social Agency | Embedding equity in mobile systems.

Participants Kofi Attoh received his Ph.D in Geography from Syracuse University.

His broad interests are in the political economy of cities, the politics of public space and debates in and around the idea of the “right to the city.” His research has focused on the role of transit within the political economy of cities as well as the role of urban social movements (including the labor movement) in shaping mass transit policy. He is the author of Rights in Transit: Public Transportation and the Right to the City in California’s East Bay (University of Georgia Press 2019).

Kofi Attoh will moderate the program’s panel discussion.

Naomi Doerner is

a transportation planner and equity strategist.

She is a core organizer and co-founder of The Untokening, a multiracial collective that centers on the lived experiences of marginalized communities to address mobility justice and equity. The Untokening convenes Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) leaders to heal, build community, and advance local strategies for a national mobility justice agenda. She is the Transportation Equity Program Manager for the Seattle Department of Transportation. She has a Master of Urban Planning from NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

Ms. Doerner will provide an overview of The Untokening – a multiracial collective that centers the lived experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color to advance mobility justice and equity. Her talk will feature examples of Untokening Principles of Mobility Justice in practice.

Sarah M. Kaufman is Associate Director of the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation, where she researches, advocates for and educates about cutting-edge technologies in transportation. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Planning, teaching Intelligent Cities and Advanced Projects in Urban Planning. Ms. Kaufman leads projects related to improving transportation through technology including : Intelligent Paratransit, to rethink how we transport seniors and the disabled. Previously she led the open data program at The NYC MTA. She has a Master of Urban Planning from NYU’s Wagner School.

Ms. Kaufman will address “The Pink Tax” – the added cost of transportation to women who choose alternative modes of travel to ensure their safety or to fulfill trips as a caretaker. She will share research results and policy recommendations based on her survey of 500+ New Yorkers.

2.

Mobility + Social Agency | Embedding equity in mobile systems.

Participants Mimi Sheller, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology and founding Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She helped to establish the new interdisciplinary field of mobilities research and is founding co-editor of the journal Mobilities and past President of the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility. She is author or co-editor of ten books, including most recently Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes (Verso, 2018).

Dr. Sheller's talk, "Why the Green New Deal needs Mobility Justice", will build on her book Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes (Verso, 2018) to outline the principles of mobility justice that will be necessary to make a Green New Deal possible.

Shin-pei Tsay is the Executive Director of Gehl institute, whose mission is to transform the way cities are shaped by making public life an intentional driver for policy, design, and governance. Previously, she was deputy executive director at TransitCenter; founded/directed the Cities and Transportation Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and served as Deputy Director of Transportation Alternatives. She is a Commissioner for the NYC Public Design Commission. Shin-pei holds a MSc in Cities, Space and Society from London School of Economics and a BA with distinction from Cornell University.

Shin-pei will explore equitability scenarios in her talk “Futures of Mobility: Just Access for All�

Introduction by John Schettino, AIA NY Transportation + Infrastructure Committee

3.

Mobility + Social Agency | Embedding equity in mobile systems.

Recommended resources Justice and Rights

Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes.

Mimi Sheller Verso, September 25, 2018 ("The essential field guide to the politics of mobility" – Tim Cresswell) Mobility Justice.

Mimi Sheller Video: Mimi Sheller speaking on Mobility Justice, Total time: 1:19:29.

(Documentation from Simon Fraser University , Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, May, 2017).

Shortlink: bit.ly/Sheller-SFU On The Move: Mobility in The Modern Western World.

Tim Cresswell Chapter 6, Mobility Rights and Citizenship in the United States, pp. 147-174.

Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2006.

(How mobility, as a right, has been produced/reproduced in the United States legal system.)

Rights in Transit: Public Transportation and the Right to the City in California’s East Bay. Kafui Attoh University of Georgia Press, February 1, 2019.

(Case study asking: What is meant by a right? What rights are at stake in public transportation?)

Whose Streets? Understanding Rights in Transit.

Kafui Attoh Interviewed by Brooke Gladstone on WNYC's On the Media, November 23, 2018 (Grounding transit rights, in Marx, Engels and Lefebvre's thinking on the radical nature of cities.)

Shortlink: bit.ly/AttohWNYC Universal Basic Mobility Is Coming. And It’s Long Overdue Matt Caywood, Alex Roy. Citylab, Oct. 3, 2018.

(Making a case for easy access to work and essential services as a human right.)

Shortlink: bit.ly/UniversalBasicMobility

Innovation and activism

The Curb-Cut Effect.

Angela Glover Blackwell (How initiatives designed to benefit vulnerable groups often end up benefiting all of society.)

Shortlink: bit.ly/BlackwellCurbCut Future Living. Essay in Onward: Mobility in the Next New York. pp. 23-29.

Edited by Daniel McPhee, Published by Urban Design Forum, 2018, (A transportation perspective on,"What kind of future/city do we want?"

Shortlink: bit.ly/Future-Living Untokening 1.0 – Principles of Mobility Justice.

Mobility justice recommendations rooted in liberation of historically marginalized communities.

Shortlink: bit.ly/UntokeningPrinciples

4.

Untokening collective statements.

Perspectives of individuals whose lived experience included being part of marginalized groups.

Untokening.org/resources Transportation Equity Caucus Established by Anita Cozart, Managing Director of Policy Link, at policylink.org.

(A diverse coalition promoting policies that ensure access, mobility, and opportunity for all.) equitycaucus.org

Research and theory

Cosmobilities (Interdisciplinary network of social scientists working in areas of mobility research.) cosmobilities.net Mobilities Research & Policy Publications at Drexel University College of Arts and Sciences (Source of Mobilities Journal, Transfers, Explorations in Mobility and other key writings.)

Shortlink: bit.ly/Mobilities_Publications The New Mobilities Paradigm.

Mimi Sheller, John Urry Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, Vol. 38, 2006, pp 207-226. {Seminal text in establishing mobilities as an emergent multidisciplinary field of study.)

Shortlink: bit.ly/MobilitiesParadigm

Women's challenges in mobility

How to Ease Women's Fear of Transportation Environments Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, with Camille Fink,Shahin Geramilinda Samuels, Oct. 2009.

(Landmark study on the needs of women regarding transportation and safety) Shortlink: bit.ly/Women-Transit-Safety The Pink Tax on Transportation: Women’s Challenges in Mobility Sarah M. Kaufman, Christopher F. Polack, and Gloria A. Campbell. November 2018.

Shortlink: bit.ly/TransportPinkTax Transport is Not Gender-Neutral Karla Gonzalez Carvajal, Muneeza Mehmood Alam. January 24, 2018.

The World Bank, Transport for Development Blog (Recap from Transforming Transportation 2018 conference, Washington DC. Jan. 11-12, 2018) Shortlink: bit.ly/NotGenderNeutral Up-Stand: Making life more accessible for pregnant women and families. www.up-stand.com

Climate Change

On The Move: Mobility in The Modern Western World.

Tim Cresswell Epilogue pp. 259 - 265.

(Brief, penetrating analysis of the implications of Hurricane Katrina and the 'mobility poor') The Fourth National Climate Assessment. Chap. 12: Transportation. Key Messages: Transportation at Risk, Impacts to Urban and Rural Transportation, Vulnerability Assessment.

(Legally mandated report to Congress and President delivered no less than every four years) Shortlink: bit.ly/Climate-Assessment

5.

A touchstone for considering mobility in the context rights and equitability; provisions for freedom of movement established on December 10, 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly under Assembly Resolution 217 A, aka:

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 13.

(1)

Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country,

including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14.

(1)

Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15.

(1)

Everyone has the right to a nationality.

(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Program presented by the AIANY Transportation + Infrastructure Committee.

To learn about what the T+I committee does, visit our website: bit.ly/AIANY-TI