Mobility Justice
Basics
Why Car Dependency Makes Healthcare Access Harder — Particularly for the Marginalized
More than 20 percent of car-free U.S. adults in car-dependent places are skipping medical appointments because they can't physically get to the doctor, a new study finds.
May 8, 2023
How Can Sustainable Transportation Advocates Help End Poverty? An Interview with Matthew Desmond
One in nine Americans live in poverty, and millions more live in a precarious place somewhere between precarity and true security. A new book argues that we can all play a role in challenging the systems and individual choices that "keep poor people poor" for benefit for everyone else.
April 25, 2023
How Bike/Walk Laws ‘Arrest’ the Mobility of Black Americans
Black pedestrians, bicyclists and micromobility users are subjected to a far wider array of dangerous laws than many sustainable transportation advocates may realize, a new report finds — and repealing them alone is not enough to guarantee them the freedom of mobility they need and deserve.
March 28, 2023
Study: Pedestrian Death Rate More Than 2x Higher in Historically Red-Lined Neighborhoods
Communities that were red-lined in the 1930s are still experiencing more than twice the rate of pedestrian deaths today than more privileged neighborhoods — and we can't achieve Vision Zero until we reckon with racist and classist policies that contribute to the disparity, a groundbreaking new study argues.
March 17, 2023
Syracuse’s Messy I-81 Teardown Fight Shows the Challenge of ‘Reconnecting Communities’
An 11th-hour legal battle over the future of one of America's most talked-about highway teardowns is sparking a debate about what it really means to "reconnect communities" devastated by highway construction — and possibly offering a preview of similar fights on deck in other U.S. cities.
December 12, 2022
Podcast: Who Gets Hurt When Cities Ban E-Scooters?
On today's special edition of The Brake, we're re-broadcasting an episode of Charles T. Brown's "Arrested Mobility" podcast that centered around what happened when St. Louis forced e-scooters out of its downtown — featuring our own Kea Wilson!
November 29, 2022
Should People Be Able to Issue Their Neighbors Traffic Fines?
Imagine a world where every cell phone in every pocket in America could be instantly transformed into a portable traffic camera, capable of issuing misbehaving motorists a ticket with little more than a few swipes on a touch screen.
November 22, 2022
Why Do People With Disabilities Have to Sue To Get Accessible Sidewalks?
Philadelphia is the latest U.S. city to agree to make its sidewalks accessible to people who use assistive devices — though the win would be more significant if people with mobility challenges weren't so often forced to sue to get basic access to the places where they live.
November 14, 2022
Why Some Pittsburghers Want To Scrap Their Famous MaaS Pilot
A coalition of disability rights groups is calling on their city to cancel an headline-grabbing transportation pilot that they say will only make streets worse for people with mobility challenges — and build a better one with their needs at the center.
October 26, 2022
Opinion: E-Bike Charging Stations in Former Newstands Won’t Get it Done
The Doordash/GrubHub/UberEats tech bros business model is basically, "Burning Man for me, burning apartments for thee."
October 12, 2022