Resilient Communities Project: Mobility Hubs

Cities across the globe have been designed with a primary goal of moving people around quickly--and the costs are becoming ever more apparent. The consequences are measured in smoggy air basins, sprawling suburbs, unsafe pedestrian environments, and despite hundreds of billions of dollars in investments, a failure to stem traffic congestion. Every year our current transportation paradigm generates more than 1.25 million fatalities directly through traffic collisions. Worldwide, 3.2 million people died prematurely in 2010 because of air pollution, four times as many as a decade earlier. Instead of planning primarily for mobility, our cities should focus on the safety, health, and access of the people in them.   Beyond Mobility is about prioritizing the needs and aspirations of people and the creation of great places. This is as important, if not more important, than expediting movement. A stronger focus on accessibility and place creates better communities, environments, and economies. Rethinking how projects are planned and designed in cities and suburbs needs to occur at multiple geographic scales, from micro-designs (such as parklets), corridors (such as road-diets), and city-regions (such as an urban growth boundary). It can involve both software (a shift in policy) and hardware (a physical transformation). Moving beyond mobility must also be socially inclusive, a significant challenge in light of the price increases that typically result from creating higher quality urban spaces.   There are many examples of communities across the globe working to create a seamless fit between transit and surrounding land uses, retrofit car-oriented suburbs, reclaim surplus or dangerous roadways for other activities, and revitalize neglected urban spaces like abandoned railways in urban centers.   The authors draw on experiences and data from a range of cities and countries around the globe in making the case for moving beyond mobility. Throughout the book, they provide an optimistic outlook about the potential to transform places for the better. Beyond Mobility celebrates the growing demand for a shift in global thinking around place and mobility in creating better communities, environments, and economies.

"The Great American Dream of cruising down the parkway, zipping from here to there at any time has given way to a true nightmare that is destroying the environment, costing billions and deeply impacting our personal well-being. Getting from A to B has never been more difficult, expensive or miserable. It doesn't have to be this way. Jeffrey Tumlin's book Sustainable Transportation Planning offers easy-to-understand, clearly explained tips and techniques that will allow us to quite literally take back our roads. Essential reading for anyone who wants to drive our transportation system out of the gridlock." -Marianne Cusato, home designer and author of Get Your House Right: Architectural Elements to Use and Avoid   ?The book is full of useful ideas on nearly every page.' ? Bill DiBennedetto of Triple Pundit As transportations-related disciplines of urban planning, architecture, landscape architecture, urban economics, and social policy have undergone major internal reform efforts in recent decades Written in clear, easy-to-follow language, this book provides planning practitioners with the tools they need to achieve their cities? economic development, social equity and ecological sustainability goals. Starting with detailed advice for improving each mode of transportation, the book offers guidance on balancing the needs of each mode against each other, whether on a downtown street, or a small town neighborhood, or a regional network.