Someone recently shared an excerpt from Charles Eisenstein’s book, Climate—A New Story. Eisenstein argues that people need to shift how they talk about climate change if they truly want to effect grand change on a planetary scale. Rather than a fear-based narrative powered by an endless procession of hockey-stick graphs showing global temperature rise, he contends we need to instill passion in people to love and conserve the places dearest to them. Jonathan Safran Foer seconds this by pointing out that much of the dialogue over-hypes small differences around our views towards climate change rather than emphasizing our universal shared value (and interest) in saving the planet.
I see many parallels in all the commentary around the future of mobility. There is a growing realization that many existing transportation systems and institutions are likely, in the long run, unsustainable along multiple dimensions. The macro-trends seem clear: urbanization and population growth globally, persistent funding challenges for infrastructure, gridlock, diminished air quality, and polarizing inaccessibility.
Yet, despite these seemingly-clear challenges, and even with the astonishing growth of new mobility technologies and services, there’s barely a dent in traditional patterns of transportation (primarily, at least in the US, personally owned, single-occupant cars). In the United States, roughly 90 percent of trips still occur in a private car. Americans used micromobility for 84 million trips in 2018—but average more than 1 billion trips every day across modes. Electric vehicles represent less than 3 percent of all new cars sold.
If there is an opportunity to transition to a system that can move people and goods in a way that is faster, cheaper, safer, and cleaner, then a key challenge is: How can people be convinced to use such a system?
Mobility habits are sticky. When the automobile was mass produced and became affordable for the middle class, a narrative around the freedom to go anywhere anytime took hold. How can the narrative change to enlist mobility advocates who will press for change?
Perhaps Eisenstein is onto something. Instead of bemoaning the current and future challenges of today’s system—including crumbling infrastructure, underfunded transit, congestion, pollution, vehicle fatalities—what if people had something to love about the way they get around? Something they’re willing to get out of their cars and fight for.
How might that sort of passion be created? I think people need to see what the alternatives are, and what benefits they can reap. For all of the very real challenges they face, that’s what makes ambitious projects so powerful. What Sidewalk Labs aims to do with Quayside in Toronto—essentially rebuilding an entire district “from the internet up”—is an example, but that’s one neighborhood in one city. To make it real for people in their daily lives, those kinds of experiments should be replicated a thousand times over on a smaller scale. Another example is the City of Los Angeles’ Great Streets initiative, which involves targeted street-level improvements like benches, parklets, bike lanes, and tree planting to support thriving neighborhoods and economic revitalization.
Such demonstrations can be powerful tools to shift people’s consciousness about what the built environment can be, and how they move about it. The question then becomes: how can you nurture that enthusiasm, translating momentary interest into sustained passion? How can you build a local movement fueled not by the latest tragic cycling fatality, but on a shared love for community and a safer, cleaner, more human-centric means of transportation?
Part of the answer may lie in marrying that bottom-up enthusiasm with the resources and influence of powerful top-down institutions. Some theories of social movements suggest that access to key resources such as money, supporters, and media attention can go a long way in determining whether a nascent movement can be sustained or whether it withers. In mobility, those resources and influence could come from support in a number of places—provided they can be awakened to the opportunities that new mobility innovations offers. Consider just a few examples. The healthcare industry, where $7.7 trillion was spent in 2017, could benefit significantly from fewer emergency room visits (thanks to vehicle autonomy and related technologies) and an improved ability to make care accessible and affordable (thanks to new care models enabled by enhanced mobility options). The energy sector, often quickly transitioning to renewables, could find new ways of dynamically managing the grid via greatly-increased electric vehicle fleets. Real estate developers could enjoy new opportunities to repurpose underutilized parking lots. These industries and many others have largely been absent from the mobility dialogue or are just beginning to engage.
The powerful players in these sectors may be the “sleeping giants” of the mobility evolution. Should they awaken and align with burgeoning local-level mobility advocates, they could collectively represent a powerful force to catalyze change and overcome the entrenched status quo.
