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Mobility for All: ITE is Leading the Way to Access and Equity

By Mr. Michael Sanderson P.E., PTOE, LEED AP posted 09-16-2018 06:33 PM

  
Mobility is an abstract idea. Driving a car, everyone understands that. Riding a bike is easily explained. Taking a bus, easy to visualize. While each of these individual travel modes provides an element of mobility and can be delivered through well-worn procedures of planning and design, the broader concept of mobility is abstract and more difficult to solve.

Mobility requires us to think more systemically. How do cars, bikes, and buses work, not in isolation, but together and alongside each other? How do rideshare, bikeshare, and now scootershare help or hinder the broader concept of mobility? Are each of these modes effectively connected by the infrastructure of our built environment and enhanced by smart land use? What about Smart Communities—can big data and technology help people and products get from here to there more efficiently?

As multidisciplinary transportation professionals, ITE members are well positioned to help plan and design a system that works. We can convene the planners and engineers from the public and private sectors who will need to collaborate to create a truly seamless system. We can provide a menu of different mode choices, working effectively together for short trips and long trips, local and regional. Connecting all of these pieces would enable an unprecedented level of mobility—and ITE members have the network, know-how, and resources needed to lead the way. 

Now, though, comes the hard part. In designing a 21st century system for mobility that leverages our most innovative thinking and the most powerful aspects of big data and technology, have we considered everyone in the equation? 

I don’t think we can really talk about providing “Mobility for All” without putting two things front and center—access and equity. Access is not just about proximity; it is providing transportation choices that meet people where they are at both physically and economically. If we build a system that
is only fully available to those of a certain zip code, or those with the means to afford it, we will isolate individuals and communities from full participation in society. It’s akin to providing an unprecedented level of safety through design and technology, but then only making it available on a $100,000 luxury automobile. If that is the system we build, we have not achieved an equitable solution.

So, I ask the question, is mobility a right or a privilege? Can we really, ethically, build a system where the full benefits of mobility are a privilege afforded only to those of certain means? As transportation professionals, we have a responsibility to plan and design a system that achieves the two imperative goals of access and equity. Then, and only then, can we say that we have achieved the worthy goal of Mobility for All.

This blog post is from the President's Message from the September issue of ITE Journal.
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