People-Centered Mobility

Co-chairs:

• Dale Bracewell, P.Eng., Mobility Foresight, Vancouver, BC, Canada
• Kelly Rodgers, Ph.D., MLA, LEED-AP, Streetsmart Planning, Portland, OR, USA

Council Leadership Team Representative:

• Meghan Mitman, AICP, RSP21, Fehr & Peers, CA, USA

International Board of Direction Representative:

• Amir Rizavi, PE, ENV SP, VHB, NY, USA

Transportation Planning Council Representative:

• Dan Hennessey, PE, TE, POE, PTP, RSP1, City of Santa Rosa, CA, USA

Safety Council Representative:

• Priyanka Alluri, Ph.D., PE, RSP-21B, Florida International University, USA

Complete Streets Council Representative:

• Dan Ross, HDR, Ottawa, ON, Canada

Members-at-Large:

• Alex Rixey, AICP, RSP1, Montgomery Planning, Maryland, USA
• Glen Chua, M.Eng, RPP, City of Coquitlam, BC, Canada

Background

The heart of ITE's mission is to benefit society. The People-Centered Mobility (PCM GIG) Great Idea Group was created to help ITE fulfill its mission of contributing to individual and community well-being through transportation.? The PCM GIG was approved by the Council Leadership Team in March, 2024.

Purpose

As transportation professionals, our work is focused on serving people’s travel needs: from providing access to essential destinations to ensuring people can travel safely and comfortably in whatever mode they choose. While our industry is increasingly placing greater attention on all transport modes, we often do not address the core planning or engineering foundations that?perpetuate barriers in providing the diversity of mobility choices people want and reducing the adverse consequences?to society. To reconceptualize the role of transportation in society, we will revisit our profession's assumptions, daylight biases, discover root causes, and name roadblocks. We will create new pathways for change in people’s mobility by:

1. Identifying the external assumptions, policies, and practices of our transportation industry that are either an opportunity or barrier to people-centered mobility, and 
2. Providing internal guidance for the ITE policies, practices and products produced by and for its members (and the overall industry) that center people's travel needs and their well-being 

The PCM GIG currently has three working groups, each with working group members developing technical products or new practices, and one developing trend:

Duty of Care: The ITE Duty of Care Working Group offers a chance to help shape transportation systems that prioritize people, safety, health, and inclusivity. As a key component of the ITE Safety Roadmap and Action Plan and in partnership with the Safety Council, the Duty of Care principles encourage a fresh perspective on traditional transportation planning, design, and operations. 

The Duty of Care includes key recommendations to integrate its principles into ITE’s work: 

1. Compiling and synthesizing evidence-based resources to support safe designs, operations, and program alternatives that help save lives and create healthy communities
2. Ensuring all ITE Council and Committee products align with the Beyond Duty of Care mindset
3. Embedding the Duty of Care principles into ITE staff-led publications 
4. Sharing best practices through articles, professional development, presentations, and events.

Contact Alex Rixey at alex.rixey@montgomeryplanning.org to get involved.

Movement and Place: In collaboration with the Transportation Planning Council, Movement and Place working group focuses on the multiple roles of streets by supporting people’s needs for quality public places as well as the safety and comfort of people traveling by all modes. This working group will explore topics such as: 

• Build on existing movement and place approaches and explore how to optimize streets as a network supporting people’s needs for quality public spaces and for movement 

• How land use context can help establish design standards and speeds 

• Better understand people’s travel needs and experiences 

• Explore how access to destinations, as a concept and analytical method, can help coordinate land use and transportation to help people reach the places they need to thrive. 

Contact Dan Hennessey at DHennessey@srcity.org to get involved.

People-Centered Metrics: The People-Centered Metrics working group collaborates with the Transportation Planning Council to examine the data, methods, and metrics that inform how the transportation industry evaluates transportation plans, projects, and development impacts. Our first effort is focused on performance standards associated with Transportation Impact Assessments. We are building upon previous ITE work, such as the ITE Multimodal Transportation Impact Analysis (MTIA) for Site Development, to develop metrics that help create places that support people traveling by all modes. We have joined forces with the Multimodal TIA working group, previously housed under the Transportation Planning Council, to develop webinars and case studies of successfully implemented metrics, such as person-delay.  

Contact Kelly Rodgers at kelly@thinkstreetsmart.org to get involved.

Developing Trend: A cross-cutting theme across all our working groups has led us to also be exploring “Vision and Validate” or “Decide and Provide” approaches to planning, design, and development to ensure that communities are designed for the future they want. Currently led by our People-Centered Metrics working group, this developing trend is gaining interest among our PCM GIG members as a promising upstream, system-based approach to rethinking how we plan and model our community’s mobility futures.

Resources

People-Centered Mobility: A Great Idea Whose Time Has Come (ITE Journal)

Beyond Duty of Care Journal Article [link]

Movement and Place: A Framework for More People-Centered Streets (Quick Bite)

May 14 Webinar [link]