SUMC News and Announcements
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See how The Big Shift is gaining momentum
This week we’re excited to introduce two new hosts and discussion leaders for The Big Shift: Building the Infrastructures for Shared Mobility. They will curate key conversations that need to happen to push our system towards equity and sustainability.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be introducing new speakers, discussion leaders, program details, networking opportunities, interactive sessions, and events. We recommend registering now (you get access to all of it) then relaxing as the 2021 Summit comes to life.
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Meet our newest discussion leaders:
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Naomi Doerner
Principal and Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Nelson\Nygaard
Naomi Doerner is a nationally recognized transportation equity strategist with expertise in creating diverse and inclusive strategic planning processes and facilitating institutional change based on equity, diversity, and inclusion goals. She recently served as Seattle’s—and the nation’s—first-ever Transportation Equity Manager and is the co-founder and national co-organizer for The Untokening, a national collective of leaders of color working to advance mobility justice.
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Danielle J. Harris
Director of Mobility Innovation
Elemental Excelerator
Danielle J. Harris is a passionate advocate for environmental and racial justice. As a city planner mitigating tech's growing impacts in San Francisco for 10 years, Danielle began to adapt city functions to unlock tech's benefits. Today Danielle is a thought leader in new mobility, serving as Director of Mobility Innovation at Elemental Excelerator, a cleantech startup accelerator that works to equitably and sustainably advance the transportation industry.
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New on SUMC's Learning Center
Bicycles, scooters, and walks may be healthy for people and the planet, but they're only as safe as the infrastructure used. Two new overviews on SUMC's Learning Center describe recent tactical urbanism efforts to make streets more welcoming for active transportation aficionados in Birmingham and Houston. Think pop-up bike lanes, clear wayfinding, and brightly colored streets.
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ATA, SUMC, and others ask for an additional $60 billion for public transit
Transit promotes racial equity and effectively counteracts climate change, yet it’s consistently underfunded and underserved. On Earth Day, the Active Transportation Alliance and 22 allied organizations including SUMC sent a letter to the Illinois Congressional delegation asking for a larger investment for operations, electrification, workers, and more. Read the letter.
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Mobility Justice
"Black Americans are exposed to more pollution from every type of source, including industry, agriculture, all manner of vehicles, construction, residential sources and even emissions from restaurants." The New York Times gives us yet more proof of the deadly realities of racial injustice in this article, which features a new study from the University of Illinois.
More equitable and accessible bikeshare is pedaling ahead in the US with systems like Philadelphia's Indego, Detroit's MoGo, and Milwaukee’s Bublr Bikes expanding to lower-income and BIPOC communities with discounted passes, adaptive features, and all-important community outreach.
Cities should not attempt to fix budget woes through traffic fines and fees that unfairly burden those least likely to be able to pay them, victimizing low-income and BIPOC communities with unjust targeting, debt, and worse that exacerbate racial and economic inequities. It's time we give them up.
Massachusetts Senator Joe Boncore and associate executive director of GreenRoots María Belén Power call on the MBTA to choose fully electric buses for Boston's Silver Line route to create cleaner air for communities disproportionately affected by pollution and particulate matter.
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Ridehailing/Carsharing/Carpooling
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Bikesharing & Micromobility
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Transit
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Technology
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Sustainability
What can pandemic migration patterns tell us about the population fluctuations of cities? CityLab maps out the data on the "urban exodus" narrative that swept the nation, setting the record straight by highlighting how most movers stayed within the same metro area (a whopping 84%).
A cohort of 27 companies—including IKEA, Sky, Uber, Volvo, Coca-Cola, Lime, and Enel X— are calling on EU governments to phase out combustion engine cars in the continent by 2035 to bolster zero-emission mobility, sustainable infrastructure, and decarbonization.
Not a drop of gasoline by 2040. That’s the plan (which cuts about 37.5 million gallons of fuel) of New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, which plans to buy only electric buses by 2028—a big increase to its existing 25.
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Project Funding Opportunities
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Interested in sponsorship? (Yay!) Take a look at the options.
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Have breaking news or an interesting deep dive to share?
Let us know.
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