UC ITS Scholar Spotlight: Dillon Fitch-Polse
Co-Director of the BicyclingPlus Research Collaborative, and Research Faculty, UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies
What are your research interests and what types of projects are you currently working on?
My research interests revolve around bicycling, particularly bicycling as an alternative mode of travel. This work stems from an overall research interest in environmental sustainability and equity.
My current projects are closely aligned with these interests, such as, quantifying the benefits of active transportation investments, evaluating e-bike rebate programs and the potential for e-bikes to substitute for car travel, and exploring how micromobility services such as shared fleets of scooters and bikes, could not only help with environmental sustainability by reducing automobile use, but also promote social equity by giving those without vehicles more affordable transportation choices.1, 2, 3
A lot of my work on e-bikes and micromobility is about how it’s changing people’s behavior, whose behavior is changing, and whose behavior isn’t changing. Also, how we can leverage those services and programs for social good as well as reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Do you have any projects beyond bikes and micromobility?
I also have some projects on measuring accessibility statewide for cars, transit, biking, walking; and another on tracking whether regions are making progress on improving accessibility in their regional transportation plans as they’re supposed to under SB 375.4 This work relates to evaluating ways to reduce car use and the many strategies we can use to do that, whether through land use strategies, such as promoting mixed uses and compact development, pricing strategies, such as charging for parking, or promoting alternative travel modes to driving.
What do you consider your most significant research finding or accomplishment thus far?
A key finding from my research is that shared micromobility has potential to both advance equity and increase environmental sustainability. We’ve found some evidence 5, 6 of this in the Sacramento region where people with lower incomes who used micromobility services did so at very high rates, and a large share of micromobility trips were substituting for car trips.
There’s still a lot more research that needs to be done on this topic. For example, there’s a lot of criticism that micromobility and shared micromobility only work in dense areas. The private sector has been running these services now for the past few years, and they’re focused just on trying to be profitable, so they’re not actually looking for micromobility to be a public transit option, which a lot of us working in this space want it to be.
If we can figure out how to incentivize the use of micromobility and reduce the overall cost, there’s a real potential to reduce GHGs and provide a new low cost transportation option for people whose accessibility is limited and don’t have a lot of good travel options. This outcome is something I’m excited about.
What issues in transportation keep you up at night?
That we have a car monoculture in this country and it’s growing across the world.
I agree with a lot of other scholars that people need to have more transportation choices that will enable them to change the way they travel. But having viable alternatives to traveling by car is often undercut by land use patterns and policies, such as single-use zoning, roadway expansion, low density development, and not capturing the true cost of driving (through pricing or other means) to account for the environmental and social harm it causes. We have some interesting new policies to promote compact development and mixed use, but these policies aren’t delivering at a rate that needs to occur.
The other problem related to this is that land use changes take decades. We’re looking for rapid interventions that can occur now and reduce emissions now. We need strong land use policies that can make communities more accessible so that people can easily walk, bike, take transit, or ride a scooter to daily destinations.
I don’t know how to solve this bigger issue. It’s a really challenging topic.
Is there something that inspired you to do this work?
When I think of inspiration for the work I do, I think about our town of Davis. It shaped a lot of how I think about transportation and how transportation could be better. We’re not perfect, we’ve got a lot of car use, but Davis is this unique little city where biking is somehow a norm and it took decades for that to take shape.
It inspires me in that it’s not that different from a lot of other places in the U.S. yet it’s got this integrated transportation network; travel distances are pretty short and we have pretty good accessibility at least within the city.
There are a lot of other places across the state and country that could be more like Davis. I’m inspired by that. Just living in this environment and realizing we can make other cities like Davis. For example, when talking about biking and walking as the norm for travel, sometimes I’ll hear people say “that’s fine in Europe, but it’s not going to happen in the U.S.” Well, I live in a city where this is happening, and some of our bigger cities in California are also pretty inspirational with a greater number of people using transit and walking. Cities across California are trying really hard to grow those shares, which I think is a powerful thing.
Is there any particular person who has inspired you?
My former advisor, Professor Susan Handy has inspired a lot of my work. She has long pushed back against a lot of the norms in transportation. The U.S. has a horrible history in planning, not only with redlining and exclusionary zoning, but also more generally through systematic environmental and social harms. Yet there also seems to be this movement in transportation that has the power to change for good. Susan has shown me that even though we have this dark past, we have the potential in our field to do a lot of social and environmental good. She teaches hundreds of undergrads every year. Not every one of them is going to go out and do something with transportation, but a lot of them do. It’s fun and inspiring to think about all those people Susan has impacted at some level. They’re out there in some field, hopefully helping out in the world.
What are you reading right now?
I’m reading Anne of Green Gables with my nine year old daughter. It’s about a girl who has big emotions but her community is kind of closed off, a little regimented, and she shines this light on their life. I think it’s a wonderful thing to see this beacon of light come into this community. I think that we all could use that in our lives a little bit more. It’s a very special book. Anne is an amazing character that is just timeless.
My daughter is a picky reader, but when she gets something that she likes she grabs onto it and just gets hooked. It’s really fun to read with her and experience the book as she’s experiencing it.
What are you streaming right now?
My kids have been super into Encanto. We’ve watched that tons of times.
What’s a fun fact about you?
People usually smile when I tell them I play the accordion. I grew up playing the piano. My wife got me an accordion for a birthday present more than ten years ago. I was really excited. I think I played it every day for a year just to learn it. I play for fun, just songs around the house. It’s a very interesting underappreciated instrument although it seems to be having some kind of resurgence.
What is your superpower?
I feel like that’s changed over time. If you asked me 5, 10, or 20 years ago, I could have given you what I thought were the best parts of me. Now, I look back and laugh at that because of how much I’ve changed. I have a growing sense of openness which is new, which is becoming one of the most powerful parts of me: openness to different ideas and perspectives.
Any last thoughts you’d like to share?
I think about my kids and how they’re growing up, and I wish there was a way to know how to pursue lasting change in younger generations. It’s not about convincing them to do it. It’s mostly about showing them the problems in our society, accepting where we are, and working together toward a better future.
1. Is Micromobility Being Used in Place of Car Trips in Daily Travel (or “Trip Chains”)?
2. Micromobility Trip Characteristics, Transit Connections, and COVID-19 Effects
3. What Travel Modes do Shared E-scooters Displace? A Review of Recent Research Findings
4. Senate Bill 375 requires regional planning agencies to align their land use, housing, and transportation policies to achieve state mandated reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
5. Investigating the Influence of Dock-less Electric Bike Share on Travel Behavior, Attitudes, Health, and Equity (Phase I)
6. How Dock-less Electric Bike Share Influences Travel Behavior, Attitudes, Health, and Equity (Phase II)