New mobility modes and services have tantalizing potential, but they can also impose significant costs and risks. We need objective and comprehensive analysis to determine how—and how not—to incorporate these new technologies.
When shopping for a car, you’ll find numerous websites and guides that provide detailed information on their costs and performance, plus ratings and reviews. However, there is much less data about emerging transportation technologies and services that are poised to affect our lives and communities, like e-bikes, ride-hailing, and even futuristic but not far off technologies like pneumatic tube trains, autonomous cars and drones. Information about those technologies is often incomplete, speculative and biased.
These new mobility modes and services, or “new mobilities,” have tantalizing potential. They may allow people to scoot, ride and even fly like never before. However, they can also impose significant costs and risks. We need objective and comprehensive analysis to determine whether they should they be mandated, encouraged, regulated, restricted or forbidden.
A little skepticism is appropriate. Advocates offer images of happy passengers traveling in sleek, fast vehicles, but the reality may be very different. New travel modes and services are often less comfortable and more costly than proponents claim. Ridership, revenues and benefits may be much smaller than optimists predict, and they may make many people worse off overall. For example, autonomous taxi passengers may find garbage and odors left by previous occupants; flying cars can create significant noise, safety and privacy problems; and you may want to shoot down the drones delivering pizza and beer to your neighbor’s late-night party.
This is a timely issue. In the future, households and communities will face countless decisions concerning how to incorporate emerging mobility technologies and services. It is important to make those decisions based on comprehensive analysis. We can’t evaluate each new mobility in the confines of this column, but in a new book, New Mobilities: Smart Planning for Emerging Transportation Technologies, I offer a framework for undertaking a thoughtful analysis.
FULL STORY: Pneumatic Tube Trains and AVs to the Rescue? Smarter Planning for New Mobility
Florida Considers Legalizing ADUs
Current state law allows — but doesn’t require — cities to permit accessory dwelling units in single-family residential neighborhoods.
HUD Announces Plan to Build Housing on Public Lands
The agency will identify federally owned parcels appropriate for housing development and streamline the regulatory process to lease or transfer land to housing authorities and nonprofit developers.
Conservatives’ Decongestion Pricing Flip-Flop
When it comes to solving traffic problems, the current federal administration is on track for failure, waste, and hypocrisy.
Research Shows More Roads = More Driving
A national study shows, once again, that increasing road supply induces additional vehicle travel, particularly over the long run.
Can Progressive Planners Appeal to Conservative Principles?
Trump’s approach to policies like NYC’s congestion pricing isn’t just irrational and wasteful — it defies the tenets of conservatism. But there are ways to reframe the issues.
Oak Park Plans Earth Month Events
Join Oak Park, Illinois, for a series of Earth Month events highlighting the importance of community engagement and education, integrating sustainability into local plans, and planning for the most vulnerable, such as birds, bees and butterflies.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Florida Atlantic University
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
City of Piedmont, CA
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
City of Cambridge, Maryland