SCC-CIVIC-PG Track A: Co-Creating Context-Sensitive Mobility Strategies for Advancing the Social and Economic Goals of Low-Income Communities

E4TheFuture和加州大学伯克利分校的交通可持续发展研究中心正在合作开发一个交通枢纽战略，以克服普罗维登斯、罗德岛和黑石河谷中低收入（LMI）住房/工作之间的空间不匹配。有限的公共交通为缺乏个人交通工具的边缘化社区成员确保/维持有意义的就业带来了挑战。这个多阶段的项目推进了NSF的使命，即通过提高LMI家庭到工作、医疗保健等的流动性来提高生活质量。通过开创性的研究来更好地理解LMI在交通和就业机会方面的决策，该项目采用了一种非规范性的方法来促进社区参与。通过积极的社区参与，将流动性战略与人力服务（如流动性培训、劳动力发展）相结合，将居民与工作和/或学徒联系起来，开发了一个可复制的流程，共同制定流动性战略。该项目制定了在试点之外扩展/维持项目的策略，并制定了一个设计工具包，该工具包记录了其他社区可以使用的参与、研究方法和数据分析工具。项目团队是多学科的，包括学术合作伙伴（波士顿大学、布朗大学和加州大学伯克利分校）和社区组织（流动性发展、建筑期货RI、劳动力/学徒发展组织、当地经济适用房社区组织、经济适用房保护和NeighborWorks）。该项目采用以社区为基础的参与式混合方法研究方法，满足参与者的需求并反映社区的愿望，展示了实现可持续性的途径（移动业务模式的长期财务可行性），并开发了一个试点评估模型。该项目结合定性（焦点小组、聆听会议）和定量（调查、美国人口普查）数据，从空间上分析日常出行挑战与现有交通系统之间的关系，制定出行战略和培训材料，并开发可持续模式和试点评估。该项目还具有重要的空间组成部分，将参与式制图程序与定性数据收集方法相结合。作为该计划的一部分，参与框架、方法、数据和分析工具将为未来的规划、试点项目、移动业务模式和研究提供信息。所有材料将以工具包的形式提供给其他社区使用。这种可复制的策略包含了影响就业的挑战，而这些挑战通常在典型的流动性评估中被忽略。考虑到交通枢纽设计中的这些日常挣扎，第二阶段试点将促进更广泛的社会成果，包括：1)提高学徒率、员工出勤率、工作保留/创造（关键指标）；2)弱势群体的参与；3)使用模式的变化；4)车辆行驶里程/空气质量影响；5)生活质量。该项目由美国国家科学基金会和能源部车辆运输办公室合作的公民创新挑战项目Track a支持：社区和机动性：提供更好的机动性选择，解决住房负担能力和工作之间的空间不匹配。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

E4TheFuture and UC Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center are partnering to develop a mobility hub strategy to overcome spatial mismatch between low-to-moderate income (LMI) housing/jobs in Providence, Rhode Island and Blackstone River Valley. Limited public transit presents challenges in securing/maintaining meaningful employment for marginalized community members lacking personal transportation. This multi-phase project advances NSF’s mission to improve quality of life by enhancing LMI household mobility to jobs, healthcare, etc. Employing groundbreaking research to better understand LMI decision- making for transportation and job access, the project takes a non-prescriptive approach to community engagement. It develops a replicable process for co-creating mobility strategies through active community engagement, pairing mobility strategies with human services (e.g., mobility training, workforce development) to connect residents with jobs and/or apprenticeships. The project develops strategies to scale/sustain the project beyond the pilot and a design toolkit that documents engagement, research methods, and data analysis tools that other communities can employ. The project team is multidisciplinary and includes academic partners (Boston University, Brown University, and University of California Berkeley) and community organizations (Mobility Development, Building Futures RI, a workforce/apprenticeship development organization, and local affordable housing community based organizations Preservation of Affordable Housing, and NeighborWorks).This project employs a community-based participatory mixed-method research approach that responds to participant needs and reflects community desires, demonstrates a pathway to sustainability (longer-term financial viability of mobility business models) and develops a pilot evaluation model. The project combines qualitative (focus groups, listening sessions) and quantitative (survey, US Census) data to spatially analyze relationships among daily mobility challenges and existing transport systems, create mobility strategies and training materials, and develop a sustainable model and pilot evaluation. This project also has a significant spatial component, integrating participatory mapping procedures with qualitative data collection methods. Engagement frameworks, methods, data, and analysis tools developed as part of this initiative will inform future planning, pilot projects, mobility business models, and research. All materials will be available in a toolkit for use by other communities. This replicable strategy incorporates challenges impacting employment, which are often omitted from typical mobility assessments. Considering these daily struggles in the mobility hub design, the Stage 2 pilot will foster broader societal outcomes including: 1) Advancement of apprenticeships, employee attendance, job retention/creation (key metrics); 2) Participation of underrepresented populations; 3) Changes in modes used; 4) Vehicle miles traveled/air quality impacts; and, 5) Quality of life. This project is supported by the CIVIC Innovation Challenge program Track A. Communities and Mobility: Offering Better Mobility Options to Solve the Spatial Mismatch Between Housing Affordability and Jobs through a collaboration between NSF and the Department of Energy Vehicle Transportation Office.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.