Mobility Archives - Shareable https://www.shareable.net/category/mobility/ Share More. Live Better. Mon, 12 Dec 2022 07:44:31 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.shareable.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/cropped-Shareable-Favicon-February-25-2025-32x32.png Mobility Archives - Shareable https://www.shareable.net/category/mobility/ 32 32 212507828 Best of Shareable 2022 | Reader’s Digest https://www.shareable.net/best-of-shareable-2022-readers-digest/ https://www.shareable.net/best-of-shareable-2022-readers-digest/#respond Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:30:55 +0000 https://www.shareable.net/?p=47136 As 2022 comes to a close, we’re revisiting our favorite stories from the year. Covering everything from fan favorites to multimedia features, this round-up isn’t just a snapshot of our annual editorial catalog, it’s a celebration of our ongoing commitment to uplifting the stories and voices that make up our global sharing community. Here’s a

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As 2022 comes to a close, we’re revisiting our favorite stories from the year. Covering everything from fan favorites to multimedia features, this round-up isn’t just a snapshot of our annual editorial catalog, it’s a celebration of our ongoing commitment to uplifting the stories and voices that make up our global sharing community.

Here’s a look back at our year through stories, featuring our top 22 articles of 2022.

1. This Tiny House Trailblazer is helping to build a more inclusive movement

Tucked away on a farm outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, Jewel Pearson is living her dream — one that has been in the making for more than two decades. In 2015, she downsized her life into a less than 500-square-foot tiny house on wheels. Pearson launched Tiny House Trailblazers in 2016 to advocate and create a safe space for other Black tiny home owners – and inspire Black and Brown people to pursue and achieve their own tiny living dreams.

2. Vancouver’s Indigenous communities are reimagining housing & urban development

In Vancouver a new type of Indigenous community is emerging — one that builds resilience, health, creativity, and culture through shared housing and local, Indigenous leadership.

Innovative, Indigenous-led housing can build resilience, wellness, and provide opportunities for cultural revitalization and effective stewardship of land resources. It can also be delivered in a way that creates a validating experience, allowing a person to feel seen, reach their full potential and contribute to society with their basic needs met.

3. How communities are reimagining LA’s vacant lots

Across Los Angeles, tens of thousands of empty lots sit vacant. They’ve been there since the Watts Riots of 1965, and have become dumping grounds for trash, makeshift tent sites for the homeless, and are often vandalized.

Now, a growing array of citizens, contractors and community activists are reimagining the ways the lots can be utilized—with solutions ranging from temporary housing sites to plots for shared gardens.

4. These queer-led groups are securing housing for LGBTQ+ youth and elders

In 29 of our 50 states, LGBTQ+ people still lack comprehensive legal protections against discrimination in housing, healthcare, and employment. Lack of safe, affordable housing is particularly evident in our country’s queer youth population, who face a risk of homelessness that is 120 times that of their straight counterparts.

Across the country, there are many organizations working tirelessly to transform this stark reality by offering safe spaces, long-term housing, and other resources to LGBTQ+ youth and otherwise marginalized communities.

5. The Human Library connects people by tackling stigma and isolation

Established in 2000 by Abergel, his brother Dany, and colleagues Asma Mouna and Christoffer Erichsen, the Human Library is a global initiative that merges curiosity, understanding, and acceptance among people with a traditional library framework. In any Human Library depot (or, currently, during organized virtual events) average people (“readers”) can request to have a conversation with (“read”) someone who identifies in a particular way. Readers “check out” these “human books” for a “loan period of 30 minutes.

6. Market Box delivers food—and solidarity—to the people

The COVID-19 pandemic saw an influx in the number of mutual aid groups popping up across the country. Now, as the world trepidatiously welcomes a “new normal”, communities are reassessing their needs and capacities. Many newly-laid networks of mutual aid have been forced to adapt, reassess, and reimagine their role in protecting and providing for the communities.

Such is the case in Chicago. During the pandemic, approximately 40 mutual aid groups sprang forward to address the growing numbers of citizens who were or were becoming food insecure. Market Box (a volunteer-led direct-to-consumer food delivery provider) was one of them.

7. Boxville and beyond: Shipping container marketplaces are revitalizing city centers and BIPOC businesses

Over the last 20 years, builders have been utilizing shipping containers as affordable, environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional constructions. These days, it is not uncommon to see homes, schools, hospitals, and even swimming pools constructed from shipping containers.

Armed with this knowledge, urban planners and community developers have joined the movement, using shipping containers to construct temporary and permanent shopping malls that empower Black and Brown entrepreneurs, help fledgling businesses, and revive downtown areas in disenfranchised neighborhoods.

8. Co-ops for freelancers? Guilded challenges the idea of “starving artists”

Art is labor and the fruits of that labor are what make society worth living in, so artists and cultural workers should get paid fairly, should have access to benefits like healthcare, and should have ownership over their work and process.

This is the foundational belief of the new worker co-op, Guilded. Launched as a pilot project about eighteen months ago, Guilded aims to provide benefits, administrative support, employee ownership, and equity to freelancer artists and other contract workers.

9. NC’s Industrial Commons creates thriving new communities from the ashes of old industries

In the foothills of western North Carolina, the small town of Morganton is home to a growing co-op movement that’s reinvigorating the region’s once-struggling textile and furniture manufacturing industries, and refashioning them around egalitarianism and localism.

This expanding collective of frontline workers and artists is changing the way people there view industry and the nature of work.

10. Sri Lanka’s untold story of resilience: Sarvodaya’s pathway can work anywhere

Beyond the headlines, though, there is an untold story of how the people of Sri Lanka have managed during this crisis, a story that offers a pathway to resilience and “thrival” that can be adopted (and adapted) by any country, bioregion, or neighborhood. Quietly and behind the scenes, a unique non-government organization called Sarvodaya has mobilized a national network of thousands of self-sufficient villages to do what “official” organizations could not.

11. The slums of Mumbai are a wellspring of innovation — and injustice

Roughly 60% of Mumbai’s residents live in slums, and for most of them, leaving means losing their livelihood and facing insurmountable living expenses. Yet despite the cramped quarters, poor sanitation, and hazardous working conditions, Dharavi represents the only chance for its residents, many from disadvantaged rural backgrounds, to make a better life for themselves and their children.

With about 10,000 skilled craftsmen from many diverse backgrounds and upwards of 15,000 factories, Dharavi has become something of a self-organized special economic zone, with its own parallel economy.

12. A brief history of Black cooperatives in the U.S.

For as long as there have been Africans in America, there have been examples of Black social, cultural and economic solidarity. Often formed in response to systemic exclusion and economic stagnation, examples range from mutual aid networks, to freedom farms and grocery cooperatives.

Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard is a political economist specializing in economic development policy, Black political economy, and popular economic literacy. In an interview with writer Mira Luna, Dr. Gordon Nembhard talked about her research on African American cooperative economics, which she further detailed in her 2014 book.

13. When decolonization meets post-capitalism: the third annual post-capitalism conference

During this 3-day virtual summit (anchored by the Wiyot Tribe, Cooperation Humboldt, Cal Poly Humboldt faculty, and a number of different sponsors — including Shareable) community members and practitioners gathered to share information and experiences, strengthen alliances and networks, explore decolonial strategies, and uplift practical solutions to healing the land and people.

14. Survival before sustainability: How vegan reforestation in Haiti got stuck

Haiti has been subjected to centuries of environmental shocks, exploitation, and extraction — often at the hands of foreign powers. Though the lasting impacts of colonialism and exploitation are evident in Haiti, a sanguine spirit of mutual aid exists there. Could transporting an environmental solution that worked in southern India to eastern Haiti be benefits for local residents?

In this moving personal account of a reforestation effort gone “awry”, Aaron Fernando gets to the heart of the idea that solutions need to be community-driven and tailored to local needs and conditions.

15. The Response: Wartime Mutual Aid in Ukraine

In February, after a months-long prelude that many never believed would come to fruition, Russian troops landed in Mariupol and Odessa along the Azov and Black sea coasts, and Russian tanks rolled in through the Belarussian border crossing of Senkivka in the north. The Russian invasion of Ukraine had officially begun.

In this episode of The Response, we highlight stories of Ukrainian resistance and solidarity. A small but significant glimpse into how the Ukrainian people have come together to survive the war, to strengthen their communities, and to fight for each other and their autonomy.

16. The Response: Abortion Access and Reproductive Justice in a Post-Roe Landscape

In the face of trigger laws banning and criminalizing abortion in many states — as well as state-sanctioned harassment and targeted campaigns against people seeking abortions — the centuries-old movement for reproductive rights and justice has only grown and strengthened.

This episode of The Response takes a deep dive into how communities are responding to the growing abortion access crisis in the United States, sharing the stories of those impacted and highlighting a number of radical grassroots, mutual aid, and solidaristic efforts aimed at helping people access abortion in the places where it’s currently outlawed or restricted.

17. More than crisis care: Mutual aid for the pandemic and beyond

Emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic, The UK — like many global communities — remains an economically-precarious and socially-traumatised place. Adding insult to injury, we are now facing a cost-of-living crisis. A growing number of people are requiring help to secure adequate housing, food and shelter. Now more than ever, the mutual aid groups that acted so vitally during the pandemic continue to be needed.

From Below is a feature length documentary film that showcases the human, emotional stories of the mutual aid phenomena. The film also highlights the ways mutual aid can continue to be used as a force for change in a post-pandemic future.

18. Places of Togetherness: The social everyday life of Nikea’s shared courtyards

Nikea is a municipality in the greater area of Athens with an extensive network of such transitional spaces. The historic center of Nikea includes 134 building blocks with internal shared courtyards or alleys at their heart.

In part one of our editorial series with the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens, we introduce readers to Places of Togetherness, a research project investigating the relationship between urban space and social cohesion. Moreover, the project aims to work with local people to re-imagine and co-design what the courtyards could look like in the near future and what impact a transformation like this could have in their neighborhood and community.

19. Can ‘Cathonomics’ produce a just and sustainable world?

The common good is an old idea and one that Pope Francis insisted on bringing up repeatedly after his arrival in the Vatican in 2013, in the lingering aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Echoing Francis, former International Monetary Fund economist Tony Annett’s new book, Cathonomics, argues that our economy has become deadly to many people, precisely because it so often defeats our efforts to work for a common good. He also offers an alternative framework, grounded in the spiritual principles of Catholic social teaching.

During an interview for Shareable, Annett sat down with Ownership Matters’ Elias Crim to discuss the book’s key focus.

20. Meet the Seattle artist creating community connections at The Library

Artist C. Davida Ingram is the public engagement programs manager for The Seattle Public Library. Since she landed the role, she’s made it her mission to create space for artists of color to pursue and hone their gifts through the lens of social justice.

During the pandemic, she collaborating with an extensive group of community partners and local artists to produce a series of artistic and educational events—all part of a focus on public health amid the pandemic. She’s also worked with community partners to launch BLOOM Food Justice Initiative, a BIPOC-led community garden initiative and youth fellowship addressing pandemic-era food insecurity.

21. How equitable strategies in harm reduction are keeping communities safe

Coss Marte founded his company CONBODY to help formerly incarcerated people integrate back into society. His one is just one example of one of the multifaceted aims of harm reduction—a practice aimed at minimizing the negative health, social, and legal impacts associated with drug use. Examples include creating safe spaces for drug users, clean needle and syringe programs to reduce the spread of illness, sealing criminal records to make employment easier, and housing initiatives that aren’t contingent on sobriety.

Experts in harm reduction envision a future where cutting-edge strategies transform a system that also disproportionately targets Black Americans.

22. The making of La BOM: Montreuil’s new Library of Things and Sharing Hub

Last but certainly not least, we’re ending the year by celebrating the opening of LaBOM. Inspired by Shareable’s coverage of the sharing economy, Bibliothèque D’Objets De Montreuil, also known as La BOM, opened its doors as a Library of Things in April 2022 in the Parisian suburb of Montreuil. La BOM was conceived in 2019 and has enjoyed support from the community as well as foundations, regional government, and Montreuil Mayor Patrice Bessac.

La BOM’s community is centered on its 600-square-meter building, which offers photography, music, sewing, textile studios, a wood shop, a repair shop, and an alkaline (disposable) battery exchange to the greater Montreuil area.

Help us keep this work going!

None of these stories could exist without our extraordinary team of writers and editors and readers like you. In 2023, we’re deepening our work, bringing Shareable solutions, staff and support directly to communities like yours.

As we shift our focus from inspiration to action, we’ll remain committed to providing high quality content that connects with, emboldens and inspires our readers. You can plant the seeds that help us grow the sharing revolution — and keep this publication ad-free and independent — by becoming a monthly contributor or giving a one-time donation today.

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Arrested Mobility: Exploring the impacts of over-policing Black mobility in the U.S. https://www.shareable.net/cities_tufts/arrested-mobility-exploring-the-impacts-of-over-policing-black-mobility-in-the-u-s/ https://www.shareable.net/cities_tufts/arrested-mobility-exploring-the-impacts-of-over-policing-black-mobility-in-the-u-s/#respond Thu, 11 Nov 2021 21:18:55 +0000 https://www.shareable.net/?p=44316 Editor’s Note: Shareable is partnering with Tufts University on this special series hosted by professor Julian Agyeman (Co-chair of Shareable’s Board) and Cities@Tufts. Initially designed for Tufts students, faculty, and alumni, the colloquium has been opened up to the public with the support of Shareable, and The Kresge Foundation. Cities@Tufts Lectures explores the impact of

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Editor’s Note:

Shareable is partnering with Tufts University on this special series hosted by professor Julian Agyeman (Co-chair of Shareable’s Board) and Cities@Tufts. Initially designed for Tufts students, faculty, and alumni, the colloquium has been opened up to the public with the support of Shareable, and The Kresge Foundation.

Cities@Tufts Lectures explores the impact of urban planning on our communities and the opportunities to design for greater equity and justice.

Register to participate in future Cities@Tufts events here.

Below is the audio, video, and full transcript from a presentation on November 3, 2021, “Arrested Mobility: Exploring the Impacts of Over-Policing Black Mobility in the U.S.” with Charles T. Brown. 

The collective racialized forces of over-policing (i.e., policy, planning, law enforcement/policing, and polity) Black physical mobility in the US has led to adverse social, political, economic, and health outcomes that are intergenerational and widespread. This presentation surgically examines the ways in which our approaches to research, planning, policy, and design can and must be reimagined to achieve greater mobility, health, and safety for Black Americans.

Arrested Mobility is the assertion that Black people and other minorities have been historically and presently denied by legal and illegal authority, the inalienable right to move, to be moved, to simply exist in public space. Unfortunately, this has resulted — and continues to result — in adverse social, political, economic, environmental and health effects that are widespread and intergenerational. But they are preventable, which is why we are here talking about it today. – Charles T. Brown

About the presenter

Charles T. Brown is a “street-level researcher,” “pracademic,” and the founder and principal of Equitable Cities, a minority- and veteran-owned urban planning, public policy, and research firm focused at the intersection of transportation, health, and equity. He is also an adjunct professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.

Listen to “Arrested Mobility: Exploring the Impacts of Over-Policing Black Mobility in the U.S. on the Cities@Tufts Podcast (or on the app of your choice):

Image result for apple podcast - landscape agency Cities@Tufts on spotify - planning Stitcher Logo (Black BG) - landscape agency Google Podcasts: Cities@Tufts - planning

 

Arrested Mobility: Exploring the Impacts of Over-Policing Black Mobility in the U.S.” Transcript

Julian Agyeman: [00:01:34] Welcome to the Cities@Tufts Colloquium, along with our partners Sharable and the Kresge Foundation and the Barr Foundation. I’m Professor Julian Agyeman and together with my research assistants Perri Sheinbaum and Caitlin McLennan, we organize Cities@Tufts, a cross-disciplinary academic initiative which recognizes Tufts University as a leader in urban studies, urban planning and sustainability issues. We’d like to acknowledge that Tufts University’s Medford campus is located on colonized Wampanoag and Massachusetts traditional territory.

[00:02:06] Today, we are delighted to welcome Charles T. Brown. Charles is the founder and principal of Equitable Cities, a minority and veteran-owned urban planning, public policy, and research firm focused at the intersection of transportation, health, and equity. Charles is also an adjunct professor at the Edward J. Bluestein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. He’s an award-winning expert in planning and policy and has been interviewed by several notable outlets, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Vice, and Bloomberg City Lab. Charles previously served as a senior researcher with the Allen and Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers, where he authored several groundbreaking national and local studies that redefined how experts analyze the role of race and racism in transportation and mobility.

[00:02:59] Charles’s talk today — and I’m fascinated by the title — is “Arrested Mobility: Exploring the Impacts of Over policing Black Mobility in the US.” Charles, a Zoom-tastic welcome to the Cities@Tufts colloquium. As usual, microphones off and send questions through the chat function. Charles, over to you.

Charles T. Brown: [00:03:20] Thank you. Thank you so much, sir. You know how much respect I have for you. So my being here today, at a minimum, is out of the respect for you. So thank you so much for the work that you’ve done and you continue to do around the world. Welcome everyone. As stated, my name is Charles T. Brown. And as always, please say the “T”. Today I would like to discuss with you Arrested Mobility: Exploring the Impacts of Over Policing Black Mobility in the United States.”

[00:03:52] I would like to begin, however, with an embarrassing photograph of me. I figured the earlier I could embarrass myself, the better this presentation will be. But I also share this presentation as a reminder of how I identify. This little guy that you see here in this photograph identifies first as a street level researcher. Given the fact that I strongly believe that many of the answers to our problems are found in the streets among the people. I identify secondly, as a prac-academic, given my unique experience of working inside and outside of academia for over a decade.

[00:04:31] It is important, though, that I let you know where my values come from. I was reared and rural Mississippi in a town of less than 500 people. And since that time I’ve traveled and worked in communities of all sizes, ideologies and cultures across the U.S. — some blue, some red, some green and many confused. In short, in the words of Jay-Z, I have 99 problems, but understanding you isn’t one of them. I live by the African proverb “I am because we are.”

[00:05:06] To begin, I think it’s important that we agree on some foundational definitions of equity and racial equity. Equity is the guarantee of fair treatment, access, opportunity and advancement, while at the same time striving to identify and eliminate barriers that have prevented the full participation of some groups. The principle of equity, though, acknowledges that there are historically underserved and underrepresented populations, and that fairness regarding these unbalanced conditions is needed to assist equality in the provision of effective opportunities to all groups. So what we know about equity, then, is that in its most basic sense, it involves trying to understand, give people what they need to enjoy full, healthy lives.

[00:05:55] However, when you start to receive pushback on equity is in the reality that equity is the presence of justice and fairness within the procedures, the processes and distribution of resources by institutions or systems. As my Mississippi mother would say, if you’re looking for an inequity when injustice, follow the money. See, this equity work isn’t just a desktop exercise. It requires an understanding of the underlying or root causes of inequalities and oppression within our society. I want to remind you that being proximate to equity doesn’t make you an equity expert.

[00:06:35] Which takes us to racial equity and its importance? Racial equity is about transforming the behaviors, institutions and systems that disproportionately harm people of color.

[00:06:46] And it’s about increasing their access to power, redistributing and providing additional resources and eliminating barriers to opportunity to empower low income communities of color to thrive and reach their full potential. But equity, and the encouragement of racial equity, is not about excluding other marginalized groups. As we understand it, equity impacts intersect and compound with other identities such as gender, sexual orientation, ability and etc. We also acknowledge that there are various dimensions of equity, from ability equity to income equity to total equity down to vertical equity, which takes us down to the importance of a consideration of equity and intersectionality.

[00:07:32] And to highlight this, I invite you to play along with me here as you consider not only others’ various social identities, but your own. And I invite you to answer questions to yourself, such as looking at this beautiful wheel in front of you, this graphic, which identities do you think about most often? Which identities do you think about at least often? Which of your own identities would you like to learn more about? Which of your identities have the strongest effect on how you perceive yourself? And then lastly, which of your identities have the greatest effect on how others perceive you?

[00:08:10] See, I ask these questions because too often the identities that we think about least often are all too often left from our tables, cut out of our decision-making processes, or whose pain and trauma we normalize for the sake of the greater good. See, meaning in my community have stated transportation and planning has been weaponised as a tool of oppression within our society. And to look for the evidence of this weaponization, all you have to do is look to highway robbery that has impacted many Black and Brown and low-income communities across this country from the historic Treme in New Orleans to Hayti, in Durham, North Carolina.

[00:08:57] We also have to look into the impact of transportation-related decisions on climate in our pursuit of climate justice. I was both fortunate and unfortunate to have survived Hurricane Katrina that hit Mississippi in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy that hit New Jersey in 2012. But we also know there’s a strong correlation to traffic violence — and what we know here as it relates to the equity lens, is that those most at risk or older adults, people of color and people walking in low income communities. When we look at the data back many years ago, what we find is that older adults, their relative pedestrian danger for them, for those age 50 and above was more than a third higher than the general population. We also note that between 2008 and 2017, Black and African Americans were 72 percent more likely to have been struck and killed by drivers while walking.

[00:09:54] Which takes us to lower income neighborhoods. People living in neighborhoods where the median household income is 36m,000 or less were killed at a much higher rate than their counterparts. But guess what the reaction was from planners, from engineers and elected officials and others? Many of them said it’s behavior. It’s all about the choices we make. I’m here to disprove this notion that is simply behavior. Because what we know is that race determines place which determines health.

[00:10:30] And to illustrate this point, I want to take you across North America. Let’s start with Peoria, Illinois. If blue represents where the white, non-Hispanic population live, green represents where Black and African-American lives, purple represents where Hispanics live, and my Asian brothers and sisters are represented by the peach and other colors. What do you see in this map? I invite you to use the chat function to play along here.

[00:10:55] But we won’t just stop with this notion of what you see manifesting in Peoria. In fact, it was said locally that someone who lives in a white neighborhood in Peoria will almost never go to a Black neighborhood. And a lot of people in Black neighborhoods won’t get the opportunity to go to an affluent white neighborhood in Peoria. But we won’t just stop there in Illinois. It’s important that we go to Detroit. And if blue represents where white people live in Detroit, green represents Black, purple, Hispanic and Asian brothers and sisters the other colors. What do you see in Detroit? We won’t stop in Detroit, neither. It’s important that we go to one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. Houston, Texas. If blue represents where white people live, green, Black, purple, Hispanic, what do you see in Houston?

[00:11:46] Well, perhaps some of you still may not see that this is not just episodic. This is the map. So let’s go to Atlanta, the place that really, in many people’s eyes, determined the presidential election. If blue represents what a majority of white people, green, Black, what do you see in Atlanta? But now many of you will see it. What you see is racial, residential segregation. What I’m afraid you’re not seeing, however, is that it is by design — and the transportation system plays a huge role in it, which is what you see here in D.C., and which is what you see here in one of the most progressive cities in America: New York City, New York, at least on paper. Because you also see in New York City the same racial residential segregation as you saw in other parts throughout the country.

[00:12:42] Many usually ask at this point, is there an exception to that rule? The answer is yes. Portland, Oregon. See if blue represents where white people live in Portland, green represents where Black live, Hispanics are represented by purple, Asian by the other colors. What do you see in Portland? You see racial residential segregation. But you also see a state organ that for many, many years denied access to people of color.

 [00:13:10] See what we know then is that history, see, doesn’t say goodbye. History says see you later. And that data that I share with you earlier of the traffic violence, even though it was many, many years ago, what we’re finding as of 2019 or 2020 is that the same things are true. People who are racialized minority, low income and seniors in this country are still dying at disproportionate rates than their counterparts. Which takes us to the question, then, how can we create a safe, equitable and inclusive system for all? Well, it begins with an understanding that is not just about behavior.

[00:13:53] See, people often would say your disease and injury, and ultimately your mortality is tied to your behavior, such as your smoking, your low physical activity, your alcohol and drug use and other behaviors. However, what they fail to acknowledge, and what we’re discovering more and more, is there exists a connection to one’s behavior, to one’s living condition and one’s living conditions, to institutional inequities and one’s institutional inequities, to the social inequities which are much further upstream. This downstream work that we’ve been doing doesn’t paint the accurate picture. We have to clearly understand the social inequities among class, race, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation and their bidirectional relationship with the institutional inequities and their birthing of the living conditions and influence risk behavior, disease and mortality is really what is taking place in society.

[00:14:52] Which means in order for us to do effective work and be effective at centering race and equity in our work, we must have a justice framework. And that justice framework must include things such as distributive justice, procedural justice, interactional justice, representational justice, and my favorite of all: care. See, distributive justice forces as ask the question: who has physical access to that street, to that park, or to that trail? Because we know, and my research has shown, that most of the respondents to a statewide survey in New Jersey, many of whom were Black and Brown, do not feel that their children are safe from traffic when bicycling in their neighborhoods. We also found that less than one in four feel they can safely bicycle to local parks or trails from their home, even though they’re in close proximity to them. What is this telling us? Proximity is not access. There’s a social-political atmosphere that we must take into consideration when we discuss space.

[00:15:53] Which takes us to the importance of procedural justice. Who has influence over the design, the operations and the programming of a particular process? And what we find is that too often minority youth are not included in planning and transportation decision making processes all over America. But there are two often more likely to be overrepresented in the pedestrian crashes and fatalities as adults much later on in life. Which takes us to the importance of interaction and justice. What makes people feel welcomed or unwanted in a space? This is important because we found in the data that African-Americans are two and a half times more likely to be killed by law enforcement. In fact, in some studies, males reported being stopped at a rate seven times that than a female, which gets at the importance again of intersectionality in our work.

[00:16:52] And if that doesn’t make the case, this does. Fatal violence against transgender and gender nonconforming community goes unreported or misreported in transportation and mobility discussions. And as you attend these webinars, these learnings by these beautiful people who will be presenting to you Tufts and elsewhere across the country. Always ask, why don’t we hear more discussion about the transgender and gender-nonconforming community? And how these things are going unreported or misreported in transportation and mobility discussions? We are not doing equity work, we’re not doing justice work if we’re not looking at the fullness of our human experience.

[00:17:36] Which takes us to representational justice. Do people feel that their experience in history is represented in this space? This becomes important because we have to think about how often historical and cultural erasure takes place in communities across this country. Which takes us to care. How do people demonstrate their care and for this space, care for the space and other people in it? Because what I’ve acknowledged or observed in the work that I’ve done around the country is that our systems have been biased against women and do not protect to the degree that they should religious minority groups. So, what can we do or what should we do internally to change this?

[00:18:19] Well, some brief racial equity strategies and recommendations include: adopting anti-racist values and cultures, conducting a racial equity action plan or undergoing one, bringing in racial equity trainings, establishing and monitoring racial equity performance measures, developing an internal equity group as well as an external equity advisory group to hold you accountable. Because in order to institutionalize racial equity, we have to build a racial equity culture within a city, within an institution, within a university and etc. And an equity culture is one that is focused on proactively — not reactively, as we’ve seen in a approach George Floyd world — but proactively counteracting inequities inside and outside of these organizations.

[00:19:14] And while you’re at it, it is important that we focus on infrastructure investments over enforcement. And you may ask why? Because this thing gets deeper. See, our mobility has been arrested, and I’ll explain to you in a second, what is arrested mobility. Before I do so, I want you to understand that the context currently is that there are a plethora of federal, state and local initiatives, plans and programs aimed at increasing physical activity and improving pedestrian and bicycle safety and mobility for Black and Brown people in the U.S. These programs include vision zero, complete streets, open streets, livable streets and safe streets. But many of them, when you look at them through the lens of equity and justice, what you know is that they fall short of removing the barriers to increasing safety and mobility for Black and Brown people and low-income people in this country.

[00:20:20] And the reason for this is that the current descriptions is ahistorical and apolitical, particularly in regards to the history of systemic and institutional racism. The strategies do not highlight the role of state and municipal law enforcement in discouraging and denying physical activity among BIPOC populations. Thirdly, equitable and inclusive access is listed as a foundational element, but too often not explicitly as a desired outcome or goal with any tangible organizational commitments to funding organizations that work with and in Black communities.

[00:20:57] Fourthly, what we find is that there is no mention of the overwhelming data highlighting the magnitude of unconscious bias and the criminalization of Blackness and otherness in America, particularly in light of the current climate. Fifth, we find that the strategies do not specifically discuss the need for institutional changes, particularly around increasing diversity, equity and inclusion internally as well as externally. See, many will say, and they mean well, that these are social determinants of health. But if you’ve studied planning or practiced planning long enough, you know that these are not just social determinants of health. These are political determinants of health.

[00:21:44] Which takes us to arrested mobility. Arrested Mobility is the assertion that Black people and other minorities have been historically and presently denied by legal and illegal authority the inalienable right to move, to be moved, or to simply exist in public space. Unfortunately, this has resulted and continues to result in adverse social, political, economic, environmental and health effects that are widespread and intergenerational. But they are preventable, which is why we’re here talking about it today.

[00:22:19] See, the arrested mobility framework, as shown here, shows that arrested mobility is the direct manifestation of racism across four distinct realms of racism, from the personal to interpersonal and institutional and the cultural. These collective realms of racism have resulted in the social construct of race, locally and globally, and have thus led to the intentional and oftentimes deliberate targeting and over policing of Black people. This includes their physical mobility, of which there’s a direct relationship, and their social mobility, of which there is an indirect relationship.

[00:23:00] Now, please note that I understand that the direct relationship between the variables shown here are much more complex than displayed. So how are Black people overpoliced? Black people — or over policing — is evident and radically redefined by me to consider three distinct forms that, in the aggregate, work together to arrest the mobility of Black people. The first form — and there is no particular order here — is policy and planning. For instance, racialized zoning and land use practices that have led to racial residential segregation or transportation decisions that have led to disinvestment in many minority low-income communities. The second “P” is policing. Better yet, enforcement, which is at the federal, the state and the local level. The third “P” is rising in popularity as we understand its connection, and that is policy. Better yet, the self deputization of white citizens in America — the “Karens.”

[00:24:12] See these three P’s together arrest the physical mobility of Black and Brown people, and this is evident via all different modalities. Whether one is walking, biking, driving, taking public or private transit, hopping a ride via rideshare or using a micro mobility device such as an e-scooter. Now many are you at this point are skeptical. You’re asking the question: Is there evidence to support arrested mobility across different modes of transportation?

[00:24:48] Well, let’s start with walking. One of the most recent cases of arrested mobility via walking includes the cases of Ahmaud Arbery, who was jogging, Trayvon Martin, who was walking, and Mike Brown, who was also walking. Both Ahmaud and Trayvon were killed by self-deputized citizens. Mike Brown by law enforcement. What we find in terms of the data is that an analysis of five years of tickets issued to pedestrians in Jacksonville, Florida, revealed that fifty five percent of the tickets were issued to Black individuals, even though they only make up 29 percent of the population. In that same study, they found that Blacks were three times more likely to receive a ticket than whites. And Residents of the city’s three poorer zip codes were about six times as likely to receive a pedestrian citation as those living in the city’s other more affluent thirty four zip codes. And if you have not heard the name Raquel Nelson, please do me a favor and pause at this moment in Google her.

[00:25:56] But we’re not going to stop just walking and running because in the arrested mobility framework, we also know that it is present within bicycling or cycling. And what we know is that there are a dozen studies and reports of over policing Black mobility via biking in the U.S. I’ve been fortunate to lead work across the country and written a number of articles and reports on this subject. But some of the more notable and recent ones include the topic of Biking While Black in Chicago, which was done by the Chicago Tribune and many other studies in Tampa, Oakland and the one done by the Bicycling Magazine — I think as of last year.

[00:26:38] But what does the data say? Well, the data for bicycling shows that in Tampa, Florida, starting in the southeast between 2003 and 2015, Tampa police issued over 10,000 bicycle tickets. 79 percent of them were issued to Blacks, though only 26 percent of Tampa population identifies as Black. Surprisingly, during the 12 year study period, at least one 142bicycle tickets were issued to kids aged 15 and under, including children as young as three years old.

 [00:27:16] Which takes us to Oakland, California, out west. In Oakland, 60 percent of all bicycles stops between 2016 and 2017 included Black cyclists, though the city of Oakland’s population is only 25 percent black. Twice as many tickets were written in majority Black neighborhoods in Chicago than in majority white or Latino neighborhoods. In fact, in one case, it was found at 321 tickets versus only 5 were issued in Austin, a low-income majority Black community. And if you visited Chicago, you know who you’re more likely to see by race and ethnicity on Chicago streets.

[00:28:02] Which takes us to driving. The most recent and notable cases of over policing Black mobility via driving includes the murders of Philando Castile and Sandra Bland. But what does the data show? As it relates to driving, a nationwide quantitative analysis of policing trends and traffic stops show that Black and Hispanic drivers are stopped disproportionately to white drivers. Unsurprisingly, police are less likely to pull over Black drivers after dusk when the race of the driver is less obvious to police.

[00:28:36] Which takes us to Minnesota. There was a state commission study in Minnesota that found that Blacks and Latinos were seven times more likely to be stopped by police in white majority neighborhoods. In fact, in 2016, 47 percent of the arrests in the local St. Anthony Police Department were Black individuals, even though the patrol areas only seven percent Black. As you’re seeing once more, this is not just episodic, this is thematic.

[00:29:06] Which takes us to public transit. And one of the more notable cases there included the murder of Oscar Grant III, was a 22 year old Black man murdered by a BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) police officer in Oakland, California. But what does the data say? Well, when we look at New York and Marshall Project analysis of the New York Division of Criminal Justice Service data from 2014, showed that while the number of turnstile arrests have decreased significantly, what has not changed is who gets arrested. Eighty nine percent of those arrested are Black or Hispanic. In fact, when adjusted for subway traffic, the top 10 neighborhoods in New York with the highest number of arrests per subway swipe were all predominantly Black or Hispanic. And there is the case of Adrian Napier, a Black teenager who was tackled by 10 police officers for fare evasion. The fare was only $2.75. Yes, only $2.75.

[00:30:14] This takes us to Portland, Oregon, where in 2017, Blacks were eight times more likely than whites to be charged for certain transit violations in that city. Thankfully, this policy was later decriminalized in 2018. This form of decriminalization is what we’re asking for across all the various modes, which I’ll demonstrated here shortly.

[00:30:40] But before we go there, it takes us to ride sharing. And what we find in ride sharing is that Black travelers waited on average 20 percent longer than white travelers to have their ride accepted or Lyft or Uber X. An even scarier finding is the fact that on average female travelers were driven five percent further than males given the same start and finish location. Do I need to remind you of the importance of intersectionality in our work? Lastly, and I’ve had this happen to me all over America, 55 percent of Blacks who have called for a cab at some point have experienced a refusal by the service to send a cab to their community. But arrested mobility doesn’t stop there. It also happens, of course, even when we’re sleeping or while being a kid and playing in our yards, as was the case of Breonna Taylor and the young prince Tamir Rice.

[00:31:36] But you may be asking at this point, you may say Charles T., we get it. What then are the social, the political, the economic, environmental and health outcomes of arrested mobility? To keep this brief, there are a plethora of them. The most noted ones are that Blacks are 54 percent less likely to be physically active than whites, regardless of neighborhood or individual income level. We find that areas with larger Black populations tend to have lower rates of upward mobility. I stated how arrested mobility arrested the physical mobility, which impacts the upward mobility of Black people. There also Black areas disproportionately associated with food, deserts which are made even worse by a lack of access to transportation options.

 [00:32:25] And then lastly, we find the impact of racial residential segregation as segregation discernibly affects educational attainment for Blacks much more than for whites. Then we find that Blacks consistently have less access to important resources and opportunities like health care, supermarkets, education and jobs, and they have less access too to reliable transportation. And when you think about the political consequences of this, you see that this transportation disadvantage makes Black people vulnerable to disenfranchisement efforts like a lower density of polling places, which then exacerbates the lack of representation in government.Perhaps there’s a reason why more people voted when they did not have to drive to or walk to or bike to or take public transit to the polling places in many Black communities around this country.

[00:33:22] Which takes us to item number three. How do we center equity in our transportation decision making processes? It is at this point in the presentation, I invite you to take out your phone to quickly take a picture of the various actions that I’m going to go through because I’ll go through them quickly for time. I’ll touch on racial equity strategies, mobile equity strategies, procedural, language, gender, spatial equity, and then my favorite one of all, common sense.

[00:33:55] Starting with action number one: Commit to equity through the adoption of a racial equity action plan. Action number two: Prioritize investments and maintenance in minority and low-income communities across this country. And when we say infrastructure, I mean specifically bicycle and pedestrian related infrastructure. And don’t just build it. Be sure to maintain it as well, as disinvestment is a policy decision that continues to exacerbate arrested mobility. Action three: Ensure the full and fair participation of racialized minority groups. They have an obligation — you have an obligation to ensure their full and fair participation. You also have an obligation to prevent the denial of the reduction in or significant delay in the receipt of benefits by these groups as well.

[00:34:57] Action four: language equity. To understand how diverse we are, look at the people present here today. It’s imperative that we foster more equitable treatment of diverse languages in the public sphere. Which takes us to action five: Please document and encourage mobility and access for the elderly and persons with disabilities. And we are addressing this for persons with disabilities, please consider persons beyond just those with physical disabilities. It’s imperative, too, that we acknowledge the need to address concern for those with cognitive disabilities as well.

[00:35:35] Which takes us to action six: The importance of engaging with women and female headed households. As well as action seven: foreign born populations to deepen our understanding of their behavior and usage differences. I talked about the male-centric nature of planning and policy work in this country. It’s important that gender becomes a critical piece in terms of how we view our transportation concerns and needs in communities across this country, because too often gender based violence against women in public spaces, as well as trans women in this public space, is too often ignored.

[00:36:19] Which takes us to action number eight: It’s important that we evaluate and mitigate the unintended consequences of our improved mobility and access, because what we know is that through this planning in minority communities mature just in time for gentrification to take place. Which takes us to action number nine: Racialized zoning and land use. There are many who believe that if you believe in racism, white supremacy, structural racism and white supremacy, zoning and land use was one of his first tools. So, we must analyze the impact of past and current zoning and land use decisions to undo the racialized zoning and land use practices that have been done across America.

[00:37:07] Which takes us to action ten: It’s imperative that we all safeguard against discriminatory enforcement. If we are to promote any form of enforcement in our efforts to improve safety mobility for all, we must completely safeguard against discriminatory enforcement. While doing so we must continue to challenge and eliminate the scary Black male narrative because unfortunately, too many of our brothers are being jailed, killed or incapacitated as a result of this fear. And while we’re at it, let’s challenge and eliminate the angry black female narrative as well.

[00:37:49] Which takes us to action twelve: It’s imperative, as researchers will tell you, that we collect and analyze this A aggregated data on these Black lives and experiences. Too much is happening, too much decision, whether funding or infrastructure related decisions are being made with insufficient data on Black lives and experiences. Which takes us to action thirteen: The importance for advocating for the penalization of race based 9-1-1 calls. Do I need to say more?

[00:38:21] Which takes us to action fourteen: We must collectively organize efforts to decriminalize jaywalking across this country. Because these jaywalking laws have been used in a pretextual way to target minority and low-income populations, many of whom — or the overwhelming majority of whom — are Black males. Action fifteen: We must organize efforts to decriminalize cycling in low income and BIPOC communities. There is no need to enforce riding on sidewalks. Failures to have proper lights or reflectors, failure to use a ride within available bike lanes, or failure to obey traffic control devices, when we know these are the very communities that lack the infrastructure for them to do so safely. See, it takes a very courageous person to bike in a street that is already deadly. If you provide a sidewalk or if you provide protected bike lanes, excuse me, perhaps people wouldn’t have to ride on sidewalks, but they’re riding on sidewalks out of fear of being killed, which is a fear that many of us share.

[00:39:33] Am my bonus for you before I wrap up here is that it’s about time we challenge what it means to be bicycle friendly or strong town. It’s time we do so because many of the communities that are rewarded for being bicycle friendly or strong, or the very communities that continue to deny access to the very infrastructure programs and initiatives that these communities are rewarded for. See, for every Portland, there is an East Portland. For every Hoboken, New Jersey, there’s a Camden, New Jersey. For every Tampa, Florida, there’s a Jacksonville, Florida. And for every Manhattan, there is a Bronx. And we know for every Chicago, there is a South Side. And so, many of you would say, we understand. We’re in the same boat. I’m here to say, I love you. But no, we’re not in the same boat. We’re in the same storm. And there is a huge difference.

[00:40:34] See, when I go around America speaking to Black people in particular, but the Black, Brown, and low-income people, what I know is that we are tired. We can’t go jogging. We can’t be a 10 year old walking with our grandmother and father. We can’t walk home from the corner store. We can’t have a disabled vehicle. We can’t run. We can’t breathe. We can’t live. See, our mobility has been arrested. And that’s true regardless of our age and regardless of our mode. But I want to thank you again today for having me here. Please stay in touch. I love you all. Thank you.

Julian Agyeman: [00:41:16] Whoa, powerful, powerful stuff. You know, Charles, you and I have talked, and I know this material, but the way you present it, your positionality, where you live — you added a whole new spin for me with some incredibly powerful concepts there. We’ve got quite a few questions here. One thing I just wanted to ask you about. You know, a personal sort of thing, this debate on infrastructure, because, you know, some people say, Oh, we need the physical infrastructure and other people say it’s more about a cultural infrastructure around cycling. Are they necessarily separate, the physical infrastructure and the cultural infrastructure?

Charles T. Brown: [00:41:59] I think by definition, there’s certainly separate. But in terms of needs, we are to consider both. Because for many, just the existence of infrastructure that is not culturally relevant or sensitive would not achieve the goals that we ultimately like to achieve. I think too often we ignore the importance of culture in the work that we do. Which is why I wanted to ensure culture was at the center of this presentation. Which is also why, in 99.9% of my presentations I wear a suit, sometimes a suit and a tie. But for today, I thought it was important for me to just come culture. To represent my fraternity, Brothers of Kappa Alpha Phi Fraternity Inc. around the world. And to show up as myself free of any expectations. So yes, cultural infrastructure is important, as well as just infrastructure in general. I think it all leads to the likelihood of harm being exhibited towards these racialized populations.

Julian Agyeman: [00:43:04] Thanks, Charles. Ok, we’ve got some questions. A very direct question from the White House watch group — that’s not President Biden, that’s our White House. Yeah, although who knows who’s watching us, Charles.

Charles T. Brown: [00:43:17] I mean, present presented to them before they’re here, good to see you again.

Julian Agyeman: [00:43:23] Question: how many people are needed to get into a color-coded region in your maps. You showed us those maps earlier on. So we’ve got some GIS whiz people here. They want to know. They want to know some answers.

Charles T. Brown: [00:43:36] I love the GIS people. I started my career in GIS and so stick to it. Those maps came from the National Geographic Block By block — I think is called Neighborhood Block By Block maps. I cannot at this point tell you how many people were ever represented in order to determine the most dominant characteristic by race at a Black group. But you can go to National Geographic Block By block to figure out the methodology for that.

Julian Agyeman: [00:44:05] Great, thanks, Charles. Another question from the White House watch Group: does your research take into consideration Airbnbs and vacation rentals?

Charles T. Brown: [00:44:15] Yes, absolutely. But for this particular presentation, I came here looking at it simply through the lens of transportation. In the definition of arrested mobility, you may recall, is a move to be moved or to simply exist in public space. That also means one’s presence within or outside of a residential or commercial setting. I would also say that arrested mobility takes into consideration as well the growth in security cameras such as Ring and other technological advances that I think help to — unfortunately lead to an increase in watching Black and Brown bodies along our roadways.

I can’t think of how many times — because I own a ring camera myself — my ring camera goes off and it’s a notification by my neighbors who stated they see someone, this unfamiliar person in the neighborhood and they’re questioning why they’re there. Almost every time I look to see the video of the person that they’re referring to, probably 80 to 90 percent of the time, it is a Black individual — and most often a Black male. And so when we think about polity and self-deputization of white citizens, these security cameras, in the context of arrested mobility, is leading to even more concern and perhaps even more race-based 9-1-1 calls, which is why I was saying we need to penalize those.

Julian Agyeman: [00:45:47] Thanks, Charles. Whose role is it to undo the systemic issues of inequity and oppression, especially in the context of arrested mobility? Whose role?

Charles T. Brown: [00:45:57] Those who brought about structural racism and discrimination. It is their role to undo it, but it is our role to make sure they do it.

Julian Agyeman: [00:46:06] What take away would you give our students on that point? How can they become part of — and obviously this session with you, Charles is enlightening people. What can they do as they go out into the world, as budding planners and policy makers?

Charles T. Brown: [00:46:22] One thing they can do is to work to increase the awareness of the existence of arrested mobility. Secondly, I’m putting together with the New Urban Mobility Alliance out of D.C., the Arrested Mobility Research Collaborative, where we’re going to undergo a rigorous review of state and municipal codes that restrict the mobility of Black people. Many of the codes that we’ve already identified or those that relate to riding on sidewalks, they need to have a bicycle license or registration, even a bicycle helmet. No, I’m not opposed to bicycle helmet wearers, I just don’t think that one should lose their life due to the over policing of the pretextual stop related to the need for a bicycle helmet.

[00:47:10] As it relates to pedestrian codes and ordinances, we’re decriminalizing jaywalking. We’ve seen that happen on a state level in the state of Virginia. We’ve seen it happen at a municipal level in Kansas City, Missouri. And California was also almost about to decriminalize jaywalking but the governor there vetoed the bill. So, those are efforts you can join nationwide. And then lastly, there is coming the Arrested Mobility podcast, and I would love to work with many of you to continue to bring these stories front and center. But lastly, I would say it doesn’t matter your status in society. You have a voice and you have a pen. Continue to speak about and write about these issues until someone hears you right.

Julian Agyeman: [00:47:55] Great, Charles, thank you. And I know our students are going to be right on that one. Thank you. Edwin Figueroa says with most municipalities continuing to use the three E’s approach (Education, Enforcement and Engineering) to address traffic safety, what alternatives do we, as planners, have to move past it? And then second, can automated enforcement address arrested mobility, or is it just an extension of physical enforcement?

Charles T. Brown: [00:48:20] It can be an extension of physical enforcement, if not distributed in an equitable and unbiased way. It’s imperative that as it relates to automated enforcement, that we don’t just look to the data to determine the locations. Because much of the data is centered in biased policing and enforcement. Instead, what we should do is place automated cameras in an equitable fashion throughout the city, whether there exists these high injury networks or not.

[00:48:51] And then in terms of the ease, I think it’s important that we enforce not simple traffic violations, but traffic violations that we know are much more dangerous and could have a much more dangerous impact on a person’s life or livelihood should they be struck by a car or some other mode. So we should point people to the data to show that this form of enforcement has not led to the reduction in fatalities and injuries that we’ve saw. And thus we should be focusing primarily on infrastructure, both cultural infrastructure as well as general infrastructure.

Julian Agyeman: [00:49:29] Great, thanks. Kind of cryptic question if anybody from the White House Watch group wants to explain a bit more. What about transportation via plane post-9 11 as well? Anybody from the White House —

Charles T. Brown: [00:49:42] I get it.

Julian Agyeman: [00:49:42] You get it?

Charles T. Brown: [00:49:44] Yeah, that’s a great, great question. That’s a great question. Way to go. White House Group. I’m really looking forward to hearing from Brown House, too. I suppose my name is Brown.

Julian Agyeman: [00:49:55] They’re usually the noisiest. Brown is the noisiest. Where’s Johnny Shively today?

Charles T. Brown: [00:50:01] And so as it relates to arrested mobility, I did not include planes. I didn’t include boats. And there are other modes, of course, I didn’t include. But it certainly applies there. That’s all I’m saying. It is very much a part of the framework.

Julian Agyeman: [00:50:17] Any more questions for Charles? This is fantastic, Charles. Maybe I can ask you a couple. We — Charles, you me. our other conscious and woke people who are doing this kind of work, we’re finding that there is some pushback, but we are at an open — a much more open window on this now, don’t you think? We have a window for action?

Charles T. Brown: [00:50:43] Yes, we do have a window for action. I think the threat to that window is that symbolic victories is a threat to a real pursuit of justice. I think the co-option of the movement by those who were not working proactively on these issues in a pre-George Floyd world in a way that we were is also a threat because there, in many cases, is not these sort of sincere and genuine attempt to address structural racism in this country. But I do feel extremely optimistic, especially as it relates to students across this world, that now is the right time to raise these issues and discuss these issues and try to address them in a much more direct way. So for that reason, I sleep well every night.

Julian Agyeman: [00:51:40] Great. Question from the Brown House. Thanks for your prompt. They’ve woken up. What role does the media have in exacerbating or reducing some of the issues you talk about, i.e. scary Black man or angry Black woman syndrome stereotype

Charles T. Brown: [00:51:55] Way to represent Brown House — I knew you all were not going to let me down. So in my presentation a few times you heard me say episodic versus thematic. What the news media has done to perpetuate this violence is that they’ve written it a very episodic fashion. They tend to focus on the local issue without tying it to a much more global issue or problem. And because of this, people see this traffic violence, the over policing as on- offs. As opposed to, again, a much more global issue.

[00:52:32] They also have not discussed traffic violence in mainstream media in the ways in which they should have. I’ve been thankful that as of late I’ve been able to go on MSNBC to talk about these issues with the Reverend Al Sharpton, to have a profile in The Washington Post and be quoted in The New York Times. What we need is for that not to just be seasonal. We need this concern that we have about over policing, particularly in mobility and transportation, to be a repeating discussion in our local media.

[00:53:07] And then lastly, we need to take out the biases that exist in writing. Oftentimes, they subscribe to what they hear from law enforcement, which is that the pedestrian or the cyclist was at fault in many of these crashes. They also put in identifiers to signal class and status, for instance. They will say this individual was riding their bicycle next to an apartment complex that was known to be low income, for instance. And so what we need to do is continue to push media to be unbiased in their work and to write in a much more dramatic fashion than an episodic one.

Julian Agyeman: [00:53:47] All right, I want to leave with your thoughts on a quote that I just can’t get out of my head from @DrDesThePlanner — those of you who are Twitter addicts like me will know that Dr. Des is head of the Thrivance Group, and she said, “You want protected bike lanes, I want protected Black children. Let’s link.” What do you think of that charge? I think it’s incredibly powerful.

Charles T. Brown: [00:54:12] What I think of that is that: “I am because we are.” And Dr. Destiny is someone that I truly love and adore. She’s a sister that is fighting for justice, and she’s doing so in a way that we all should acknowledge and we should replicate or duplicate. So let’s link up.

Julian Agyeman: [00:54:34] Charles, on that, what a fantastic talk. I could talk to you for much longer. We need to catch up. Students need to get off to their classes. But again, can we give a UEP round of applause for fantastic talk? Thank you, Charles. Thank you so much. Next week, November the 10th, we have Isabelle Anguelovski and James Connolly, who are talking about “The Green City and Social Injustice: Tales from North America and Europe.” Thanks for attending Cities@Tufts Wednesday colloquium. See you soon. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Tom Llewellyn: [00:55:04] We hope you enjoyed this week’s lecture. Cities@Tufts Lectures is produced by Tufts University and Shareable with support from the Kresge Foundation and the Barr Foundation. Lectures are moderated by Professor Julian Agyeman and organized in partnership with research assistants Perri Sheinbaum and Caitlin McLennan. “Light Without Dark,” by Cultivate Beats is our theme song. Robert Raymond is our Audio Editor. Zanetta Jones manages communications and editorial. And t series is produced and hosted by me, Tom Llewellyn. Please hit subscribe, leave a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts and share it with others so this knowledge can reach people outside of our collective bubbles. That’s it for this week’s show. Here’s a final thought:

Charles T. Brown: [00:55:50] In order to institutionalize racial equity, we have to build a racial equity culture within a city, within an institution, within university, and etc.

 

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Library of Things: A Cornerstone of the Real Sharing Economy (free ebook) https://www.shareable.net/library-of-things-a-cornerstone-of-the-real-sharing-economy-free-ebook/ https://www.shareable.net/library-of-things-a-cornerstone-of-the-real-sharing-economy-free-ebook/#respond Wed, 29 Jul 2020 22:13:19 +0000 https://www.shareable.net/?p=40676 A cultural shift from owning everything we might ever conceivably want to simply have access to good quality items when we need them started to take shape following the recession in the late 2000s. As the economy recovered, there was a general concern that most people would return to pre-recession levels of consumption and the

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A cultural shift from owning everything we might ever conceivably want to simply have access to good quality items when we need them started to take shape following the recession in the late 2000s. As the economy recovered, there was a general concern that most people would return to pre-recession levels of consumption and the act of sharing would fall out of vogue. But, according to Gene Homicki, co-founder of myTurn*, a cloud-based inventory platform for Libraries of Things (LoT) even as the economy rebounded, Libraries of Things continued to gain popularity.

There are more than 400 publicly accessible libraries that provide tools, kitchen items, toys, audio/visual equipment, electronics, musical instruments, and more on myTurn alone. These comprise more than a quarter-million items available to rent and nearly a million loans annually.

For the past decade, Shareable has been on the vanguard of covering this trend. We’ve done deep dives into how libraries are boldly innovating to meet the needs of changing communities, partnered on the successful campaign to save seed sharing in the United States, advised municipal leaders on the benefits of LoTs for their cities, and produced several resources to support organizers around the world to start LoTs in their communities.

“Library of Things: A Cornerstone of the Real Sharing Economy” is both a celebration of how far LoTs have come and a glimpse into where they’re going.

In this book we explore:

  • How traditional libraries are reinventing themselves while expanding their offerings and reaffirming their role as a vital community service.
  • What you should know before starting an LoT (and how to do it!)
  • How pop-up and mobile LoTs like The Thingery and ShareShed are expanding their reach and meeting the needs of more people in their communities.
  • What opportunities exist for new services due to several advances in technology.
  • And much more.

We hope you’ll feel inspired to support your local Library of Things after reading this ebook and maybe even work with others to start one yourself!

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Bike Kitchen Bratislava: A bike hire co-op powered by the sharing economy https://www.shareable.net/bike-kitchen-bratislava-a-bike-hire-co-op-powered-by-the-sharing-economy/ https://www.shareable.net/bike-kitchen-bratislava-a-bike-hire-co-op-powered-by-the-sharing-economy/#respond Thu, 09 Jul 2020 15:00:38 +0000 https://www.shareable.net/?p=40463 In 2011, a group of cycling enthusiasts in Bratislava, Slovakia, founded the Bike Kitchen, a cooperative self-help bike repair workshop where people come together to cook and organize events. From day one, the group’s aim has been to promote bike culture and to fight for cycling infrastructure in a city that is dominated by cars.

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In 2011, a group of cycling enthusiasts in Bratislava, Slovakia, founded the Bike Kitchen, a cooperative self-help bike repair workshop where people come together to cook and organize events. From day one, the group’s aim has been to promote bike culture and to fight for cycling infrastructure in a city that is dominated by cars. In 2014, they developed a bike-sharing system, the White Bikes, which rents bikes for free through an open-source software they designed themselves. We talked to Tomas Peciar, one of the project initiators, about how bikes and food can act as connecting elements between communities.

Tomas describes it this way: “Our project started with three or four people. In the beginning, we were basically just doing flea markets with bicycles. We repaired old bikes and did one-day events with film screenings or concerts. During that period, we had a very small space. Then, through the participatory budget in Bratislava, we had the possibility to use some space in a building owned by the municipality. After we moved into this space, things became more formalized: we started to meet every Wednesday, to invite friends and to cook together, and to repair bicycles, of course.” As the co-op formalized, word began to spread and the initiative began to grow. It was spurred on in part by the large number of exchange students in the city.

“What really empowered us was the connection with the students in Bratislava. They wanted to move around by bike and didn’t want to spend money on public transportation. They were used to cycling, especially the Germans and people from other developed cycling countries. They came to us and we said, OK, we have some bikes, and we can repair your bikes, but you have to cook dinner for us. And so, in return for repairing or lending them bikes, they cooked really great specialties from all around the world for us.” The Bike Kitchen provided a way to connect community and mobility in a new way which felt very natural to the initiators. “For us, the connection between food and bicycles is very obvious, because the first thing you really need in this world is food and the second one is a bike, right? Food really connects communities – it’s inclusive – and so are bikes,” Tomas said.

For us, the connection between food and bicycles is very obvious, because the first thing you really need in this world is food and the second one is a bike, right? Food really connects communities – it’s inclusive – and so are bikes.

As interest began to grow, so did the Bike Kitchen. In 2014, the initiators started the White Bikes program, a cooperative bike sharing platform based around an open source software and a credit system. What started as a group of friends sharing 50 bikes around the city has now grown to more than 800 users. Over time, they have developed a nearly self-sustaining system. “When somebody wants to join the White Bikes, we have a face-to-face meeting and decide if it fits,” said Tomas. “We do 20 minutes of training with new users and we ask them what kind of support they can offer for improving the system, or for helping the cycling community or environmental community in Bratislava.” These users’ potential contributions are fed into a database of volunteers: “The database is categorized by the possible types of support. So, if we are organizing an event and need a graphic designer, we look at the list of graphic designers and illustrators and ask them who can help. If someone doesn’t know what kind of support he or she can offer us, it’s also fine. We always need people who can carry stuff or who have a driver’s license or who can bring food for breakfast on cycling days.”

Unlike many for-pay bike-sharing systems, the White Bikes are nearly self-sustaining, a result of design choices baked into the sharing system. “We have virtual credit: When you start to use the White Bikes, you get a credit of, let’s say, 20 points, and if you use the bike for more than one hour then you lose one point, so you have 19 credit points left. If the user doesn’t bring back the bike or locks it badly or whatever, we subtract extra credit points. When that person has zero credit points, he or she is not able to rent anymore. Of course, they get a notification before. It’s possible to earn new credit points by cleaning bikes or riding them back to where they are needed, for example. This makes the system almost self-sustainable, which is very rare,” Tomas said.

Cooperation has always played an important role in their project and is a central theme in everything they do. The members and volunteers cooperate to engage in advocacy for bike mobility and cyclist safety and to support events and keep the project going. Bike Kitchen Bratislava as a project is active in a range of initiatives and NGOs in Slovakia that focus on environmental or urban topics, in particular the largest national NGO on cycling, Cycling Coalition Bratislava. Cooperation also allowed them to start the White Bikes program because the bikes were a donation from the Dutch National Park through a local arm of the Rotary Club.

The project faces a range of challenges from limited-term leases on their space to a lack of strong support from the municipality. However, as Tomas points out, these challenges also serve to help bolster motivation among the project’s members. Despite these challenges, the Bike Kitchen has a significant impact both locally and nationally. Locally, they organize protests and events around cycling and discussions about transport and mobility during mayoral election years to help keep the topic current and visible. But they see their main impact on a national scale: “I would call our project the center of the cycling movement for all of Slovakia. This is the place where you find all the information and all the inspiration and all the motivation for pushing the cycling culture forward. So I think the impact is really, really big. Our initiative connects everything,” said Tomas.

In the end, Tomas attributes the Bike Kitchen’s success to its concentration on its core values, such as anti-racism and anti-homophobia. “Values hold a community together. We are always presenting ours to the outside so that everybody knows what kind of people we are. That connects us and at the same time keeps away those people who are not so into the community stuff. We never hide our values; they are always our top priority,” he concluded.

Values hold a community together. We never hide our values; they are always our top priority.

This article is part of our series on the Urban Commons Cookbook.

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Umeå Wheels provides a new life for abandoned bicycles https://www.shareable.net/umea-wheels-provides-a-new-life-for-abandoned-bicycles/ https://www.shareable.net/umea-wheels-provides-a-new-life-for-abandoned-bicycles/#respond Tue, 11 Feb 2020 16:00:11 +0000 https://www.shareable.net/?p=38939 Umeå is a small town in the mid-northern region of Sweden with a large university population of about 30,000 students. Bicycles are the preferred mode of transit but many students buy cheap city bikes and abandon them when they leave. When Aamer Barood moved to the town from Sudan in 2016, he noticed the numerous

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Umeå is a small town in the mid-northern region of Sweden with a large university population of about 30,000 students. Bicycles are the preferred mode of transit but many students buy cheap city bikes and abandon them when they leave. When Aamer Barood moved to the town from Sudan in 2016, he noticed the numerous abandoned bicycles on the streets. Inspired to put them back to use, he and other international students founded Umeå Wheels, a startup company that collects, repairs, and offers the bikes for sale or rent.

“I am coming from a tiny village in which sharing is a way of living. For example, if someone has food for today then he will share it, not because he wants to share but because he is not sure if he will have food for tomorrow but he knows for sure that someone else will have food for tomorrow and they will share it as well,” Aamer said.

The company has rescued 900 bikes since January 2018, and they sell from $60. 

Umeå Wheels provides a new life for abandoned bicycles
Image provided by Aamer Barood

“We aim to reduce the waste of resources and reach zero bikes stolen or abandoned. We believe that reuse should not be just an option but the first thing to do. Recycling is the last thing to do to reduce CO2 emissions from melting bikes components,” the company states on its webpage.

The company offers discounts for students the option to sell the bike back when you leave town. Maintenance is free, a big bonus because most of the bikes are old and the town’s tough winters mean the bikes need more maintenance. 

“We are still struggling to cover our basic needs and cost for the project but we are building many smart partnerships and collaboration with the local authorizes and other organizations,” Aamer said.

To prevent bicycle theft, the company is developing a digital registration system for bikes. The bike’s owner is flagged during a transaction to reduce thefts and illegal sales. 

“Although we are facing so many challenges to change people’s mentality of using secondhand stuff through a circular economy process, we want to increase the life duration of every bike by making the connection between the bikes and their owners stronger,” Aamer said. 

Umeå Wheels aims to make bike use easier, creating a more sustainable city. The owners want to make using the eco-friendly bike the primary way people get around.

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Unlocking travel for all as mobility-aid access moves to the Cloud https://www.shareable.net/unlocking-travel-for-all-as-mobility-aid-access-moves-to-the-cloud/ https://www.shareable.net/unlocking-travel-for-all-as-mobility-aid-access-moves-to-the-cloud/#respond Tue, 14 Jan 2020 17:00:23 +0000 https://www.shareable.net/?p=38695 When Punsri Abeywickrema created his online rental marketplace for travelers, he imagined able-bodied people lugging bulky items like camping gear, strollers, cameras and sports equipment. He didn’t realize his biggest market would be in mobility aids, catering to one of the fastest-growing segments of the population. Abeywickrema’s company Cloud of Goods launched in 2016 to

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When Punsri Abeywickrema created his online rental marketplace for travelers, he imagined able-bodied people lugging bulky items like camping gear, strollers, cameras and sports equipment. He didn’t realize his biggest market would be in mobility aids, catering to one of the fastest-growing segments of the population.

Abeywickrema’s company Cloud of Goods launched in 2016 to deliver rental equipment to vacation destinations. It turns out that transporting mobility devices is not only complicated and expensive but it can also be impossible. It’s free to check a wheelchair with airlines but they are sometimes damaged in the process. Most airlines refuse to accept electronic mobility devices because they have lithium batteries.

“When we launched Cloud of Goods, we didn’t think wheelchairs and electric scooters would be our primary vertical but we found this is the main problem we are solving, and we are growing quickly in this niche because of that,” Abeywickrema said.

As the last of the Baby Boomers hit retirement age, we are seeing an unprecedented swell in the aging population. The share of households with mobility devices has grown from about six percent in 1990 to eight percent in 2010. By 2025, 13 percent of households are expected to have at least one.

Cloud of Goods is giving people with a disability more mobility while traveling, and even the chance to explore places they didn’t think possible.

Robin Oglesby-Harris and her best friend wanted to take their mothers from Phoenix to Vegas to celebrate the new year. The pair used Cloud of Goods to rent scooters to help their mothers, 75 and 80, traverse the strip.

“We went up and down that strip and the battery still had life when we got back to our room!” Ogelsby-Harris said. 

Customers reserve equipment from Cloud for Goods on an online portal and have it delivered to their hotel, airport, or other destination. Gear starts at $6 a day.

Abeywickrema said a big chunk of business came via travel agents and concierges but others were parents who do not want to transport cumbersome baby gear and campers who want to “try before they buy” all the equipment for a new experience.

Creating the world’s largest pool of shared household goods

This is not Abeywickrema’s first sharing business. In 2008, while borrowing a wheelbarrow from a neighbor, he hit on the idea of a peer-to-peer rental service for household goods. His system allows him to control the supply and cater to consumer needs, which he calls the “access economy.” He is currently working on a model to create the world’s largest pool of shared household goods.

“I believe the Sharing Economy 2.0 is really the underlying need for access, and we are using modern technology to make this easier for people,” he said.

“We get a lot of messages over the holiday season from people who want to rent kitchen equipment and items for large parties, so we are looking into filling that need,” he says.

Cloud of Goods operates in San Francisco, Orlando, Anaheim, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City, and New Orleans with pilots in Atlanta and Washington, DC. The company has just passed 50,000 transactions and plans to expand globally in 2020.

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Reinventing the commute in the sharing economy https://www.shareable.net/reinventing-the-commute-in-the-sharing-economy/ https://www.shareable.net/reinventing-the-commute-in-the-sharing-economy/#respond Thu, 09 Jan 2020 16:00:49 +0000 https://www.shareable.net/?p=38673 The world is becoming ever more urban. Every year, more and more people move to increasingly dense and spread-out cities. This means that commuting to work, school, or to participate in social functions is part and parcel of modern life. But it also comes with huge costs to society. Car ownership is expensive, and traffic

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The world is becoming ever more urban. Every year, more and more people move to increasingly dense and spread-out cities. This means that commuting to work, school, or to participate in social functions is part and parcel of modern life. But it also comes with huge costs to society. Car ownership is expensive, and traffic congestion is growing around the world. Then there’s the climate impact: Transportation is responsible for about 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, and — unlike other major contributors — this figure is rising rapidly

It is clear that the traditional American model of using single-occupancy, private vehicles to get around is not sustainable or equitable. There is hope, though, that the coming years will bring about a societal shift in how residents get around cities. In fact, it’s already starting, as around the world innovative grassroots and tech-driven efforts are re-inventing the commute, giving users lower costs through shared and sustainable alternatives to driving. Here are a few of these projects, and how they are changing the dynamics of commuting:

Casual carpool

Unlike the other items on this list, casual carpool is neither a new nor a technology-driven idea. In practice, it’s quite simple: Passengers go to a designated spot where drivers can pick them up and bring them to a predetermined destination. In some places, riders contribute a nominal amount — perhaps a dollar or two — to cover gas or tolls, while in other places the time savings from using carpool lanes is enough benefit to drivers.

The two cities with the largest networks of casual carpool locations are the San Francisco Bay Area, and Washington, D.C., where it is called slugging. There are efforts to bring this informal system to more cities, including Miami and Houston.

Waze Carpool and Scoop

Reinventing the commute in the sharing economy
Image from Wikimedia

While casual carpool is great, it is also limited to a few cities’ downtown-centric routes and requires a critical mass of people to function. What if carpools could be arranged anywhere there are potential drivers and passengers? Enter carpool apps such as Waze Carpool (now owned by Google), Scoop and GoCarma, which aim to expand carpooling by connecting riders and drivers through smartphones.

Waze is connected to the popular navigation app and allows riders to request rides at any time. It is currently available in major cities in five countries: Brazil, Israel, Mexico and the U.S. Scoop is more focused on the rush-hour commute, requiring riders to schedule trips in advance, and then pooling people together using algorithmic matching. It is available in several U.S. cities. These apps are not meant to provide income to drivers, with reimbursements capped at about 50 cents per mile — enough to cover gas and expenses — and still be affordable to passengers.

Liftshare

Liftshare is a self-funded carpooling social enterprise in the U.K. that has had a remarkable impact. It counts 700,000 members on their platform, and has prevented 250+ million road miles of solo driving. Liftshare also has partnerships with big organizations to help them save money, reach environmental goals, and improve recruiting and retention. Rides can range from short commutes to cross-country trips, with fares based on distance.

Gig Car Share

Gig Car Share is a free-floating car share service started by the non-profit American Automobile Association, currently operating in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento, California, with an all hybrid and electric car fleet. Gig worked closely with the cities to set up “HomeZones,” where users can leave cars in nearly any streetside spot for free. Rates are based on how long one drives, with caps for hourly and daily usage, and with incentives given to get drivers to go to places where there are not enough cars.

TaxiStop

TaxiStop is a Belgium-based platform that started back in 1975, and has evolved to become a network for the modern sharing economy, even launching mobile apps in 2014. They arrange carpooling, on-demand car sharing, and small-group car sharing through their website, with the goal of reducing car ownership and the negative environmental impacts of driving.

Citymapper and Zipster 

Reinventing the commute in the sharing economy
Image of CityMapper from Dunk via Flickr

Today, residents of many cities have far more transportation options than ever before: bikeshare, mopeds, scooters, buses, trains, car sharing, and ride-hailing, just to name a few. Figuring out which is the best mode to take is a challenge.

Enter third-party transit apps like CityMapper (Europe and North America) and Zipster (Asia). These seamlessly tell you the best way to get from point A to point B, mixing different modes. Perhaps it’s a bike share to a train station, followed by a scooter trip; or a ferry to a bus. By empowering users with information, these free apps allow for more innovative, fluid choices when it comes to designing a commute using share, public and private options.

One card for everything

Reinventing the commute in the sharing economy
Image via Wikimedia

Closely connected to all-in-one transit apps is an all-in-one payment system. Contactless smartcard payment systems allow users to pay for a variety of transit modes through the use of stored-value credit, making it easy to switch between systems without worrying about paying each time. 

You’ll find the most advanced transit card networks in Asia. Taiwan’s EasyCard can be used to ride buses, trains, high-speed rail, and even unlock bikes at bike sharing stations. You can use Hong Kong’s Octopus on all public transit, and also to pay taxi fares. In Japan, the national network of city cards is integrated, meaning you can use your Tokyo Suica when riding trains in Fukuoka, or your Osaka ICoca on Nagoya’s subway, making travel around the country simple.

These are just a few of the many projects that are transforming how people get around cities. Alongside the growth in shared mobility and new investments in public transit, this means that commuting in the future will likely look far different than the past — better for people, communities and the planet.

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With AB5 signed, what is next for rideshare drivers? https://www.shareable.net/with-ab5-signed-what-is-next-for-rideshare-drivers/ https://www.shareable.net/with-ab5-signed-what-is-next-for-rideshare-drivers/#respond Mon, 21 Oct 2019 19:25:16 +0000 https://www.shareable.net/?p=38060 The state of California recently passed legislation that aims to radically reshape the gig economy. Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) — signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom on September 19 — limits the use of classifying workers as independent contractors instead of employees. The law entitles workers at companies like Lyft and Uber, for example,

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The state of California recently passed legislation that aims to radically reshape the gig economy. Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) — signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom on September 19 — limits the use of classifying workers as independent contractors instead of employees. The law entitles workers at companies like Lyft and Uber, for example, to certain labor protections that do not currently apply to them, such as sick leave, unemployment, worker’s compensation, and a minimum wage.

One of the groups instrumental in the fight for AB5 was Rideshare Drivers United, an organization based out of Los Angeles, comprised of over 5,000 drivers from Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing platforms. We spoke with Nicole Moore, one of several drivers who is part of the Rideshare Drivers United Organizing Committee, about the grassroots movement that put AB5 on the legislative agenda.

Robert Raymond: Can you tell us a little bit about the current challenges in the ride-hailing industry, and what Rideshare Drivers United is doing to address them?

Nicole Moore: To understand what Rideshare Drivers United does, we have to understand what’s happening right now in this industry. We have these companies who claim innovation but who have really just taken an industry and figured out how to make it extremely profitable for a few and to basically destroy the profession of driving on the other end. They’re companies that drop their app into a community — regardless of regulatory or other issues — and really just go in and then ask for forgiveness or try to work things out later. That’s been their model in municipalities across the world, and it’s why this kind of work is one of the fastest growing poverty jobs in America.

Rideshare Drivers United is an organization of drivers that are fighting for what drivers need to make driving a sustainable and respectable profession. We began organizing a little over a year ago and started building the organization with more and more drivers. One of the things that we did — and that we’re still committed to doing — is actually asking the drivers themselves: What are your priorities? What are the things you want to fight for? So we’re driver-lead. We have a strong commitment to democracy and to giving drivers a voice in how to move our fight forward.

Can you talk a little bit about the organization’s demands and your Drivers’ Bill of Rights?

The Drivers’ Bill of Rights is a document that is based exactly on what the drivers who are part of our organization have democratically voted for and decided to prioritize. The first part of the bill is demanding fair pay for it for what we do. Fair pay is having a minimum wage and having our pay linked to what passengers pay, with a 10 or 15 percent commission as the limit for what the companies can take. Right now the companies are scraping more and more [off] the fare, to the point that they’re taking more than 50 percent of the [money from] fares into their own coffers. 

Transparency is another issue — there’s so little transparency going on in everything the companies do. Drivers actually have no idea what percentage [of the fares] the company is taking, for example. Another example is that on March 11th of this year, Uber drivers woke up to a 25 percent pay cut on mileage rate — they went from 80 cents to 60 cents.They just woke up and the cut had happened. Drivers also get deactivated for no reason. So transparency is a very important issue.

Another part of the Bill of Rights is giving drivers a voice on the job. Right now, we’re misclassified as independent contractors, and we don’t have the right to form a union or to be able to bargain for a legally defensible contract. We don’t have any say in what happens in the future. 

The fourth and final part is community standards. Lyft and Uber have been very bad players in that they don’t want to share data with municipalities; they don’t want to follow the rules that municipalities have. And they act as these rogue players in municipalities, which leads to piling on car after car after car in our cities, which is bad for the community in terms of congestion, in terms of carbon emissions, and also bad for drivers. It might be good for a passenger to get picked up in just one minute. But [it would be better to] have it be a five minute pickup window and guess what? You have less congestion and drivers are actually able to make a living. I mean, right now, the occupancy rate of our cars — like how much in a shift of work are we actually having a passenger in the back — is way under 50 percent.

California recently passed a law that aims to reshape the gig economy. Can you explain what role Rideshare Drivers United had in raising awareness around drivers’ rights and ultimately getting AB5 on the legislative agenda?

We put this issue on the map back in March, when Uber cut our pay 25 percent and Lyft was about to go public. We decided it was a critical time for us to express exactly what was going on for drivers — and so we went on strike. At our rally and press conference, people told their personal stories of what these pay cuts mean, what driving means, how people had lost their homes in the process of being drivers, the amount of investment people had made in these companies, and how little money people are actually making.

We started to talk with lots of other driver groups in the state and across the country who were also organizing, and folks said next time you strike, we’re going with you. Then on May 8th, we decided to go on strike again. It was a hard decision to make — it’s not easy to go on strike. But we organized an incredible strike not just here in LA, but across the state and across the country. Two days later, Uber’s IPO [launched] and it tanked. We had changed the conversation. This was a movement of hundreds of thousands of workers across the world, and I’m just very, very proud to have been part of that moment.

I really think that that’s when the obligation of lawmakers to actually do something became really crystal clear. When the California Supreme Court decision on Dynamex passed, limiting when companies can classify workers as independent contractors instead of employees, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzales immediately started drafting legislation to codify that decision — to clarify what Dynamex meant — and that legislation was AB5.

But let me be clear: I think our strikes were essential to changing public opinion about what’s really going on with these companies, and that adds to the pressure that all lawmakers and policy makers feel when they look at a law like this. The fact that drivers said “we deserve employee rights” and continue to organize and take action on those issues is why AB5 was able to actually pass.

Aside from the strikes, what other actions did Rideshare Drivers United help to coordinate to get AB5 passed? And what other groups were a part of the struggle?

We took several buses up to Sacramento and did our own lobbying. We had support from some of our friends in labor, we had a whole list of who all the senators were, who all the assembly people were, and we broke up into groups of five or six drivers and we took to Sacramento and talked to people about what was really going on for drivers and how essential this bill was.

The bill couldn’t have passed without the help of many different people. That includes the principled unions that backed AB5 from the very beginning. So we worked closely with the state building trades, we worked closely with Transport Workers Union and other unions who felt very strongly about this bill and how important it is not just to drivers, but to all workers. I was even on phone calls with nail salon operators for whom this bill is important. We we worked with everybody to move this bill forward because we’re not the only workers in America who are misclassified, but we are certainly one of the largest groups with probably more than 300,000 drivers in California. And so, our lawmakers really did the right thing. And our governor did the right thing as well — he signed the bill.

AB 5 Drivers United
Image provided by Nicole Moore

What are some of the upcoming fights or challenges that you see on the horizon?

In terms of AB5, the industry has already doubled down. First off, they’ve said they’re not going to pay any attention to it, that they’re not going to change anybody’s status. And secondly, they’ve put together a war chest of $90 million to put an initiative on the ballot to overturn AB5 for drivers. So enforcement strategies are really going to be a key part of this moving forward.

And what’s great about AB5 is that they built into the law ways to enforce it, so the state will actually have to enforce it. But also, any city in the state with over 750,000 people also has the right to enforce the law. So in those big cities, like Los Angeles and San Francisco, we’re already starting to work with the municipalities to figure out ways to enforce the law. 

But we do still have a big fight in front of us. We have these intransigent companies who try to operate outside of the law, and all of us together have to fight to make it AB5 a reality. So I think our policy makers and our lawmakers have a moral obligation to lean in and help on this, and I’m seeing a lot of really good stuff happen already. 

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For more information visit Rideshare Drivers United

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

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Vienna’s cargo bike shares exemplify successful subsidized sustainable transport https://www.shareable.net/viennas-cargo-bike-shares-exemplify-successful-subsidized-sustainable-transport/ https://www.shareable.net/viennas-cargo-bike-shares-exemplify-successful-subsidized-sustainable-transport/#respond Wed, 07 Aug 2019 18:09:46 +0000 https://www.shareable.net/?p=37386 While bike shares are growing in prevalence in almost all major metropolitan cities, the unique benefits of cargo bike shares are being utilized and even subsidized in more European cities.  In 2017, the city of Vienna created a funding program focused on subsidizing private and business cargo bikes. One part of this subsidy was used

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While bike shares are growing in prevalence in almost all major metropolitan cities, the unique benefits of cargo bike shares are being utilized and even subsidized in more European cities. 

In 2017, the city of Vienna created a funding program focused on subsidizing private and business cargo bikes. One part of this subsidy was used to introduce a cargo bike rental program for various neighborhoods, organized and managed by local stores and the communities themselves.

The Vienna Mobility Agency, a municipal department of the city, was given the task of searching for appropriate locations and operators and subsequently installing the system.

In July 2017, the “Grätzlrad Wien” (which translates roughly to “cargo bike Vienna”) program, an online platform, started its services, with full support from the city administration. Cargo bikes are now available in 13 neighborhoods and have had more than 2,000 bookings as a climate-friendly and free alternative for people running daily errands.

According to the Vienna Mobility Agency, users have ranged from DJs cycling to their concerts, film teams renting bikes for their movies, and parents trying cargo bikes for the first time. They are a wonderful mode of transportation for carrying small children, groceries, small furniture, and even pets.

Renters choose and book the bikes online, and with a 50 Euros refundable deposit, they can rent them for up to 24 hours, with some operators offering them for the whole weekend.

Kathrin Ivancsits, director of media relations and campaigns for the Vienna Mobility Agency, says the agency works as an intermediary between citizens, the administration, and politicians to make walking and cycling in the city easier and safer.

In 2017, the agency brought the European Cycle Logistics Conference to Vienna and developed public cargo bike funding for the city.

The Vienna Mobility Agency also publishes a “bicycle report” survey every two years, establishing ideal bicycle service points and public bicycle pumps. Additionally, they hold cycling workshops for women, children, and senior citizens.

One of the Grätzlrad service points is hosted by MO.Point, an Austrian company that plans, implements, and operates shared mobility solutions on behalf of municipalities and real estate developers. MO.Point sponsors one of the bike stations, the “Grätzlrad Nordbahnhof,” in Vienna’s 2nd district. They also operate several “mobility points” around the city, where consumers can rent vehicles such as e-cars, e-kickboards, e-bikes or e-cargobikes.

Stefan Arbeithuber, Managing Partner at MO.Point Mobilitätsservices, says one of the challenges is that a condition for the subsidized program was that hosts offer the cargo-bikes for free. Due to the frequent usage, the costs for maintenance were higher than calculated and even exceeded the initial purchase price of the cargo-bike itself.

“Nonetheless, we do see the program as very positive, because it created awareness,” Arbeithuber says. “As a private mobility operator, we believe that subsidies are very attractive to implement and steer these new mobility offers. But to be feasible in the long run, the business models must work without subsidies.”

Both Arbeithuber and Ivancsits have witnessed the Grätzlrad growing in popularity and in visibility.

“Cargo Bikes are widely seen in the city of Vienna because the need for sustainable logistics and transportation is being taken more seriously by people living in the city, the media and politicians,” Ivancsits says.

Ivancsits says cargo bike subsidies are actually quite common in Europe, and have been implemented in Basel, Switzerland; Salzburg, Austria; Bologna, Italy; and München, Germany.

Expansion plans for the Grätzlrad program depend on both continued funding and the willingness of operators. Currently the program is being evaluated and analyzed by a study with the Vienna University of Technology, taking in feedback by both the operators and the users.

“We aim to learn specifically [how] people use Grätzlrad and whether it helps to forgo car-use,” Ivancsits says. “We are also evaluating the operators experience, as they voluntarily rent out the cargo bikes in addition to their core business, which is generally running a shop or a restaurant.”

The results will provide indications about the future development of the project, which currently covers a wide watch of central Vienna. 

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#BikeReady: How cyclists in NYC are delivering disaster aid https://www.shareable.net/bikeready-how-cyclists-in-nyc-are-delivering-disaster-aid/ https://www.shareable.net/bikeready-how-cyclists-in-nyc-are-delivering-disaster-aid/#respond Mon, 08 Jul 2019 15:49:22 +0000 https://www.shareable.net/?p=32273 In a natural disaster, normal amenities like roads and gas stations are often unavailable. That means cars often can’t get to communities in need and other solutions are necessary. Luckily, human-powered disaster relief can reach even inaccessible areas with no fossil fuel required. That’s the idea behind the #BikeReady campaign from Green Map, which encourages

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In a natural disaster, normal amenities like roads and gas stations are often unavailable. That means cars often can’t get to communities in need and other solutions are necessary. Luckily, human-powered disaster relief can reach even inaccessible areas with no fossil fuel required. That’s the idea behind the #BikeReady campaign from Green Map, which encourages bicyclists to organize disaster relief campaigns in their own communities.

Bike-powered disaster relief was key during Hurricane Sandy, which left much of New York City flooded and without power. Cyclists brought in relief supplies, reported conditions and carried messages, and even generated electricity for charging phones. New York’s robust cycling community came together to meet the need of vulnerable neighborhoods that were flooded in Manhattan and Queens, where electricity was still out even after the rest of the city was back on the grid. A short documentary about #BikeReady from Green Map (available in Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and English) shows cyclists loaded with supplies, bringing aid to people who had lost their homes in the flood. Bicycle-powered relief efforts are environmentally friendly and easy to replicate and don’t require highly skilled cyclists as Green Map notes in its Bike Ready guide. Even walking bikes loaded with supplies can be helpful in an emergency.

The guide has instructions on how to create a bike relief group ahead of a disaster. It emphasizes the importance of having multiple ways to reach cyclists — phone numbers, WhatsApp, social media, and email are all options, since in an emergency some forms of communication may be down. If group members have any special skills, like long-distance riding or bike mechanics, that should be noted in the contact list.

Disasters are rapidly becoming a new state of normal in America and beyond. Rather than treating hurricanes, wildfires and floods as isolated incidents, we need to see them as what they are — a consequence of climate change — and prepare for them in order to keep people safe when extreme weather does arrive. Programs like #BikeReady help communities create disaster relief plans that don’t rely heavily on infrastructure that could be hampered in an emergency — and instead, lean on residents themselves, who are an invaluable resource to help take care of each other.

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This article is part of our series on disaster collectivism. Download our free series ebook here.

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