CHANGING MOBILITY LANDSCAPE
When we shifted from horses and streetcars to cars and buses, everything about mobility and the cities in which we move changed. Today, we may be at such a tipping point again. With the advent of self-driving cars and the growth of carsharing, ridesharing, and bikesharing, mobility is undergoing a significant transformation that could have wide-ranging implications.
- What is the future of self-driving cars? When will they be available for consumer use? Will automated technologies gradually enter the market, or will fully autonomous vehicles suddenly be introduced? How will travel behaviors and the built environment change in response to self-driving cars?
- Will San Francisco and Bay Area cities invest more substantially in walkable, bikeable communities?
- Will electric vehicles finally catch on? (Electric vehicles include passenger vehicles, but also bikes, scooters, and delivery vehicles.)
- Will mobility as a service, instead of transportation as a product, become the dominant business model? In other words, will shared mobility overtake vehicle ownership?
Driverless? Autonomous Trucks and the Future of the American Trucker
UC Berkeley Labor Center and Working Partnerships USA, September 2018
“Will autonomous trucks mean the end of the road for truck drivers?”
Why Robot Cars Will Need a Lot of Human Help
CityLab, August 2018
“Google’s self-driving corporate sibling, Waymo, is preparing to launch a commercial robotaxi service outside Phoenix. As that’s happened, the focus of the program has shifted from the technical details of lasers and sensors to the operational details of how to build the system that surrounds the driverless vehicles.”
The Future of Driving Is Now a Gold Rush
Back Channel, December 2016
“The first self-driving car experiments are over, and the results are clear. The technology is feasible, becoming increasing affordable, and has a multi-billion dollar potential market. But in 2017 the tough work of scaling and commercializing begins.”
Tackling Pollution: Beijing’s Electric Bikes and Buses – In Pictures
The Guardian, June 2016
“Vehicles are the source of a third of the air pollution in the Chinese capital, which restricts their use during episodes of heavy smog. Electric cars, buses, scooters and bicycles offer an alternative, cleaner form of transport.”
Cities Alive: Towards a Walking World
Arup, August 2016
“We highlight 50 benefits of walking explored through 16 distinct indicative themes, and list 40 actions that city leaders can consider to inform walking policy, strategy and design. These are informed by a catalogue of 80 international case studies that will inspire action, and further aid cities in identifying and evaluating opportunities.”
Re-Programming Mobility: The Digital Transformation of Transportation in the United States
New York University, December 2016
“The hidden nature of these new mobility infrastructures – tiny devices in our pockets communicating over invisible radio waves with algorithms running on servers in the cloud – has conspired to conceal the important public policy and planning issues that their mass adoption raises. While we now recognize the critical importance of understanding how new information technologies will change transportation, there is great uncertainty about how this process will play out.”
The Best of CityLab’s The Future of Transportation
CityLab, 2014
“This e-book includes a dozen of our favorite stories from the series: three from each of its main parts (commuting, sustainability, and design), and three companion policy pieces. While it was impossible to choose every great moment, these selections reflect both the geographic and multimodal reach of the series, taking readers across the country on roads, rails, and runways.”
The Future of Cities
Oscar Boyson, YouTube, December 2016
“What does ‘the future of cities’ mean? To much of the developing world, it might be as simple as aspiring to having your own toilet, rather than sharing one with over 100 people. To a family in Detroit, it could mean having non-toxic drinking water. For planners and mayors, it’s about a lot of things — sustainability, economy, inclusivity, and resilience. Most of us can hope we can spend a little less time on our commutes to work and a little more time with our families.” – Oscar Boyson
San Francisco’s Smart City Challenge
SFMTA, YouTube, June 2016
“San Francisco is meeting the Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge to bring the future of shared, electric, connected, and automated vehicles to all San Franciscans. Together we can build a transportation system that is safer, cleaner, more accessible and more affordable.”
16 Questions About Self-Driving Cars
Frank Chen, Vimeo, January 2017
“Everything that moves, says a16z partner Frank Chen, will go autonomous. But what does that really mean? In this presentation from our a16z Summit, Chen goes over the 16 most commonly asked questions about autonomous cars, and what their answers might be.”
The Growth of the Autonomous Car Market
Get Off Road, January 2017
Bike Sharing Sweeps the U.S.
People for Bikes, August 2013
- Hackers Remotely Kill a Jeep on the Highway—With Me in It, Wired, July 2015
- Uber and a Bay Area Landlord Will Pay New Tenants $100 a Month to Go Car-Free, The Verge, May 2016
- The Untold Story of Magic Leap, the World’s Most Secretive Startup, Wired, April 2016
- Shared Mobility and the Transformation of Public Transit , APTA, September 2016
- No Parking Here: The Future of Parking, Mother Jones, January 2016
- (Video) New York Streets? Not So Mean Any More. TEDCity 2.0, September 2013
