Personal Mobility Choices and Disparities in Carbon Emissions

The promotion of sustainable mobility choices is a crucial element of transport decarbonization. It requires a fundamental understanding of the choices available to urban dwellers and of the equity and justice implications of green mobility solutions. In this study, we quantified personal mobility-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) and their associations with various land use, built environment, and socioeconomic factors. Our study captured personal, household, and neighborhood-level characteristics that are related to high emissions and disparities in emissions across the study region. We observed that the top 30% of emitters generated 70% of all transportation GHG emissions. Household income, family size, and vehicle ownership were associated with increased mobility emissions, while increased population density was associated with lower emissions. The percentage of visible minorities in a neighborhood was associated with lower emissions, but this effect was small. We further contrasted the spatial distribution of traffic-related air pollution with mobility GHG emissions. The results suggest that individuals who emit less GHG live in areas with higher air pollution. A computer vision-based model was used to predict GHG emissions from aerial images of neighborhoods, demonstrating that areas with high land use mixture were linked to a lower generation of mobility-based GHG emissions.

Navigating Health Equity Through Mobility Justice: Youth of Color Organizing for Transportation Equity in Our Backyards

There is growing awareness that the built environment and transportation affect many aspects of individual and community well-being and health. Built environment and transportation planning and decision-making, however, rarely integrate robust engagement and input from youth, particularly racially/ethnically and economically diverse youth, despite the likelihood that such planning and decisions will affect their futures. Strategies are needed that prepare, engage, and ultimately empower youth in changing systems, processes, and programs that promote equitable mobility access and opportunity for youth now and in these futures. This article describes the development, implementation, actions, and impact of the Youth for Equitable Streets (YES) Fellowship program, through the perspective of the program participants, including the youth (the Fellows), program manager, and program evaluator, focusing on key factors for making this work youth-centered and oriented to successfully influence social change in transportation for mobility justice.

The Role of Mobility Digital Ecosystems for Age-Friendly Urban Public Transport: A Narrative Literature Review

Within the context of the intersection of the global megatrends of urbanisation, ageing societies and digitalisation, this paper explores older people's mobility, with a particular interest in public transport, and a strong consideration of digital/ICT elements. With a focus on (smart) mobility, the paper aims to conceptualise transport, one of the main domains of age-friendly cities as a core element of a smart, age-friendly ecosystem. It also aims to propose a justice-informed perspective for the study of age-friendly smart mobility; to contribute towards a framework for the evaluation of age-friendly smart transport as a core element of the global age-friendly cities programme that comprises mobility practices, digital data, digital networks, material/physical geographies and digital devices and access; and to introduce the term "mobility digital ecosystem" to describe this framework. The paper uses the method of a narrative literature review to weave together a selected range of perspectives from communications, transport, and mobility studies in order to introduce the embeddedness of both communication technology use and mobility practices into their material conditions. Combining insights from communications, mobility and transport and social gerontology with a justice perspective on ICT access and mobility, the paper then develops a framework to study age-friendly smart mobility. What we call a "mobility digital ecosystem" framework comprises five elements-mobility practices, digital data, digital networks, material geographies, digital devices and access to services. The paper contributes a justice-informed perspective that points towards a conceptualisation of age-friendly smart mobility as a core element of the age-friendly cities and communities in the WHO's global age-friendly cities programme.