Public engagement in transportation planning processes can sometimes be hard to conduct in a meaningful way, particularly when engaging with disadvantaged communities. The reasons for this are numerous: meeting times conflict with work or caretaking responsibilities, lack of advertisement, weak connection with local community, difficulties in transportation, lack of resources within planning agency, and other logistical and resource related challenges. Additional barriers to equitable transportation may include the structure of planning processes, as well as the historical structural inequalities in the distribution of transportation resources.This project will assess current practices for engaging disadvantaged communities in participatory planning processes for transportation projects in California. The goal will be to identify specific practices, projects, or processes that were particularly successful in engaging disadvantaged communities. Materials from transportation projects and agencies will be collected and analyzed in regard to the planning processes, the level of engagement achieved, and the resulting outcomes. Interviews will be conducted with transportation professionals who took part in these processes. The project will begin by connecting with professionals with a stated investment in disadvantaged communities through their participation in active conversations on transportation equity and mobility justice. Organizations such as Untokening Collective, a multiracial collective that centers the lived experiences of marginalized communities to address mobility justice, will participate in the analysis. Patterns and themes in the participatory planning processes will be analyzed, as will their efficacy through both qualitative and quantitative measures. A final report will share patterns and themes that highlight promising trends in engaging in meaningful participatory planning with disadvantaged communities.

This project reviewed and summarized existing studies on the effects e-bicycling has on car travel, characteristics of e-bike incentive programs, and opportunities for increasing e-bicycling in California. The project found evidence from a variety of research studies indicating that e-bicycling, more so than conventional bicycling, substitutes for car travel. For example, several studies document approximately 35-50% of e-bike trips would have been made by car if an e-bike had been unavailable. In addition, e-bike incentive programs are rare in the U.S. but widespread in Europe with many lessons to offer California. For example, a California e-bicycling incentive program could be implemented in many forms such as a rebate to the buyer or a subsidy to e-bike dealers. Evaluating participants’ vehicle miles traveled reductions will be challenging but can be done with before-and-after travel surveys including data from passive GPS recording and odometer readings. The incentive amount in Europe (20-33% of purchase price) may be a good starting point for California; however, incentive caps may need to be different from those in Europe given the recent rise in e-bike retail prices. Also, e-bikes have numerous co-benefits (e.g., improving access to jobs and increasing physical activity) and should be considered in any cost-benefit analysis of an e-bike incentive program.

Cities have implemented bike share systems as a strategy for expanding mobility options, increasing physical activity, and improving the sustainability of the transportation system. These systems have attracted substantial ridership, but the impact on overall levels of bicycling and other modes of travel have not been well documented, and evidence for in-equitable systems is widespread. Two recent technological advancements in shared mobility—electric assisted bikes and scooters, and dock-less parking—may help improve equity and expand the user base of traditional bike share systems. However, little is known about dock-less and e-bike share’s influence on travel behavior. The goal of this study is to examine the travel behavior and attitudes of users and non-users of Sacramento Area Council of Governments’ (SACOG) new dock-less electric-bike share system. This study includes the “after” phase of an already completed “before” portion of the “before-and-after” study of residents in the greater Sacramento area. By re-surveying residents (many of whom are not bike share users), this project will be able to measure how the bike share system influenced general travel behavior and attitudes. In addition, this project will survey bike share users twice over the course of a year. Survey questions will ask about travel behavior before the e-bike share (through retrospective questions), during early use of e-bike share, and late use of e-bike share.

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