February 17, 2021 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
So I wanted to think on a couple of definitions, uh, if we're looking at this, the future by first glancing over our shoulder, to see where we've been, Mike is micro mobility, something that we need to fix, uh, is it, you know, thinking in systems terms and, and computer jargon, is it a glitch? Uh, that would be if micro mobility is just as big city fad, that bicycles, scooters, mopeds, one wheelers, all these things, skateboards they're aberrations, they they're here now, but there'll be gone. That's the glitch mentality. Uh, the upgrade mentality would be quite the opposite. It's no micro mobility increases and it should be integrated with other modes. So it's not about being anti-car bus, uh, you know, just oblivious to the modern infrastructure that we have. It's thinking this will lead us to a better environment, a better built environment.
Uh, go ahead, uh, Scott, and go to the next slide. So these issues about glitch or upgrade, this is mindset. So these are the, these are kinds of things that I'm fascinated with and whether it's engineering school or planning school, or even on the job, we generally are not trained to think in terms of mindset. That's something that you say you hear about in business school or just these other industries where people talk about mindset, but I think it's critical in any industry thinking about these wives and what ifs. So just a couple of quick notes on, um, what this means for us in, in planning infrastructure. So I'll just real quickly see what I have on here. Uh, this single virus that we, uh, that shall not be named for apps accelerated 20 years of TDM efforts. I mean, I'm an internal optimist. So I'm going to take this position that we've been struggling for decades to figure out how do we get people to stop driving alone everywhere.
And of course the entire world's shut down. And we know that our behavior is going to change again, but it's worth pointing out. A single virus changed, uh, our, our behavior going forward as somebody who's for many years worked remotely. This is fascinating to me that studies keep showing 50% of workers want the ability to work remote one in four are expected to absolutely work remote in 2021. It's it's just phenomenal. Students have more education choice. They don't have to go to a brick and mortar. Uh, that's true, not just for higher education, but now it's true for elementary school. So of these things, these, these everyday life things that we do that are completely different in 2021 than they were in 2019, what's temporary and what's what's going to stay. And what does this mean for you as an NPO or a partner of an NPO? Um, real quick before, before I go to the next slide, I, the reason why I think it's so important to lean into some of these things about everyday behavior is in our industry. We've got, um, something of an arrogance that we know what's coming. I mean, our job in some ways is to predict the future. So we have to be able to swallow our pride of it and consider we aren't necessarily the best predictors of human behavior, even when things are going fine without a virus. Uh, go ahead. Next slide, Scott.
I, I just want to, I want to leave you with this. It's not, uh, it's not specific tactical or strategic, uh, yet. Well, we'll get into that in the discussion a little bit later, but people ask for practical advice, like what grants should I go after? Which project should I prioritize first, they start with that without first exploring the big questions that I keep harping on. Like the why, why do we put so much emphasis on say functional classification of streets? What if we made it inconvenient to drive recklessly? What if we subsidized integrated mobility instead of subsidizing drive alone mobility? I think it's part of our training both as, um, or both by the professors in school universities and by mentors in the workplace, we're taught to think and act like practical sciences. And there's a place for that. Scientists look at the existing world around them. They, they come up with solutions based on what's happening right now, but that's in stark contrast to how artists behave artists ask. What if about unknown worlds in artists mindset is what gave us innovations like the elevator, believe it or not artists mindset gave us online banking and both of those completely changed travel patterns of human beings. So, like I said, I'm going to hold off on getting into specific ideas about how NPOs can and should strengthen and expand micro mobility for now. I just want to plant these seeds of why and what if
Great. Thanks, Sandy. That was awesome. I think right way to kick us off. Um, yeah. Uh, we'll definitely get into more specifics here in a little bit. And in the meantime, we will, um, go ahead and work on our next question. So again, for those of you that are joining us live stream, which is everybody, but, um, you can scroll to the bottom of the page and you should see a live call number two, and you will see a question that looks an awful lot like this. And in fact, I will now jump over to that question. Have you integrated micro mobility into your plans? Um, and, and just, you can answer yes. To more than one, I believe, and could be a metropolitan transportation plan, active motor plan, quarter setting or something else, or no, not really. Not yet. And as you're typing in your results emotional so far, it looks like yes. For MTPs like watching more horse race, active mode, just kind of cut off on the inside rail over to my nose. Maybe a few more seconds.
The why of, of it's pretty much evenly split. Yes, no, depending on where it is Calli, I'm, I'm excited for you to address this actually in what, in your comments in a second. I wonder if there are people could be ticking if there was an option to take multiple. Yes. Okay.
They certainly can settle down now number responses, so, and narrow winner, um, yes. For MTVs choose fries and bike walk and transit planning. Um, also, yes. And about a third of people said, um, uh, now they have integrated plans, um, yes. For some of your kind of a plan or a yes, for a quarter of study or you got the reader is still pretty close to the mall. So interesting. Yeah. Seems like quite a few people already starting to think and even integrated micro mobility topics into their, their that's pretty cool. And Kelly and Kelly will take over for me now.
Awesome. Um, thanks. Um, thanks Scott for having me on, and thank you, Andy, for starting off with some really thought provoking questions and I jotted down some notes, cause I definitely want to like bring back to them in about these questions of why. Um, and then also thinking about the trade-offs that have to go into play, um, as part of these decisions, because there are, there are absolutely no easy answers. Um, and so I, I hope with, with my presentation to talk a little bit about, a little bit about how we've approached these, these questions and challenges and some of the ideas that we've come up with and we've learned from, so, um, first I'll talk a little bit about me and Lyft. I'll touch a bit on sort of the state of the industry coming from on a micro mobility operator perspective and coming from the private sector.
And then a little bit about like, looking ahead what we're seeing, um, from our partnerships, uh, what we're hoping that we can see come about from, um, or collaborations with the public sector. So first a little bit about me, um, fun story. I have an a in a prior life w was working with, uh, metropolitan planning organizations from, with, as a member of the Massachusetts department of transportation. So, uh, that was a, um, I think really like taking off my career in understanding, uh, how transportation planning takes place at multiple levels and really, uh, embedded in me the requirement of collaboration, um, and organization and, and coordination at, um, among governments. And that's a lot of these issues are things that, um, other institutions, other agencies are facing that only really through partnerships, are we really able to address some of these changes because from just one side you cannot operate in a vacuum.
Um, and the way to make these change happen is really from, uh, you know, from, uh, from a collaborative standpoint. So, um, having worked there and then worked in, and, um, public transit consulting and Nelson Nygaard, I ultimately went out of my way to lift where I work on our government and transit partnerships team. And I'll talk a little bit more about sort of like what that means, what that work looks like specifically, but for those of you who might not know what lists about lists, um, our mission is to improve people's lives, the world's best transportation. And I think the, the focus there again is not about being the best transportation system or being the best logistics provider, but it's about improving lives and thinking about the social, environmental and economic impacts that transportation can have on people's lives. So whether that is, um, again, like making it easier to, uh, you know, pick up your groceries or get home night late at night safely, or, um, you know, make that meeting or catch up with friends in a way that that meets our needs, you know, in terms of social distancing, we want to help make that happen.
Nope. Okay. All right. Then we're just going to work with ed within this apologies for doing it in Adobe. Okay. How about this? Um, does that work? Okay. Should've gone with Andy's and just like figured out a way to get my slides into your deck. Apologies. It's always funny when you work at a technology company and you are stumped by technology.
Uh, so as I mentioned, uh, being able, you know, when we're talking about improving people's lives with the world's best transportation, uh, thinking about, uh, what are those modes and that future being multimodal thinking about as travel distance increases, being able to figure out what the most efficient mode might be for you in that, in that moment. And, and of course, making these options as seamless and readily available as possible to really provide a compelling alternative to owning a car so that, um, you were able to, you know, you're not purchasing a vehicle that sits unused 90% of the time and taking a valuable new street space when you could be using other modes that are better for you, better for the environment and better for your team.
Well, some of you also may be aware that Lyft is also the largest bike share operator in North America. Uh, we've been working in this business since 2009 and have over 40,000 bikes in major cities, um, across, um, across the U S so, um, some of our, so including like city bike in New York Bay wheels in, uh, in San Francisco, uh, blue bikes in Boston, divvy in Chicago, uh, interesting stat, we've done some research on our, our usage in 2020, and I'm really looking forward to getting into some of the details and our conversations about how COVID has affected my mobility. But, uh, we saw over 70 million miles biked on our bike sharing networks last year. And it was just, it was the expansions in service and the way that bike share has really taken off as, um, in response to the pandemic that was really astonishing to
Addition to micro mobility, we also partner closely with transit agencies and public agencies, um, across North America, uh, working to enhance mobility and fill in transportation gaps. So these programs include first, last mile paratransit, um, micro transit ways in which we're working with agencies to help them better allocate their resources. Uh, so that, again, you're providing as much as may transportation officers as possible, um, while kind of staying cost-effective and efficient with our system. So I want to just highlight sort of one example really quickly to kind of, you know, put a, um, you know, put some facts with this idea. So we've been working with Metro, uh, in St. Louis for since, uh, 2019. And, uh, in, on their first, last mile program, they went through a massive transit service redesign, and, uh, we're able to really establish a clear hierarchy of service and in concentrating higher frequency and reliability in core networks where they're able to serve more people, but they still were very committed and con and concerned about ensuring access in more suburban areas that did not have its frequent, um, or transit or better service coverage.
So they partnered with Lyft to provide subsidized rides to and from bus stops transit centers, where they can easily transfer to Metro link, Metro bots. So this program, um, became increasingly more important when COVID hit in March last year and they were dealing with, um, more and more service interruptions and were able to really quickly use Lyft to fill in those gaps, uh, and ensure that people especially essential workers were still able to get to and from work, people were still able to access services. And, and then, um, while they were facing any sort of temporary disruption now jumping quickly, I do want to talk a bit about what policies will help ensure the future we want. Like I said, transportation or cities are not planned in a vacuum. And the only way that we're able to really achieve the outcomes we want to see is by working together.
So I'm going to kind of touch on sort of like three general categories of things that, that I would really advise MPOs to look into. One is advocating for flexible funding to be used for, um, for new mobility, especially micro mobility. And like we saw with COVID in the, um, incredible explosion of usage of our system that, you know, micro mobility is an extension of public transit. People are able to get to, uh, transit, better, eat more easily. Uh, they're able to get around when transit isn't available or, um, doesn't cover the areas that they want to or times when they want to ride. Um, so looking at things like the bicycle commuter act, you know, uh, commuter tax benefits for bicycling was suspended, um, a few years ago. And by, uh, through the bicycle commuter ads, we would be able to restore funding for riders to, um, get you, you get these commuter tax benefits for biking and not just free to their personal life, but also for you to bike share, which is becoming more and more a way for, um, people who may not have money for, or, you know, are you able to afford a personal bike able to use these services?
Similarly, the bikes, your transit act is really looking at making transit funding even more flexible for transit. So looking at funds like 53 Oh seven and being able to use them to invest in bike share purposes and being able to use those and really integrate those systems, um, exploring the Explo, um, the expansion of C-Max funds, oftentimes, you know, the congestion mitigation air quality funds are used precisely to reduce greenhouse gas, emissions and bike share and bicycling and active transportation is one of the best ways of we can do this. And especially in combination with feeding into transit. So thinking about how we can make it more explicit that these are modes that we want to invest in and making sure our federal funding, you know, acknowledges that and reflects that.
And I actually want to talk a bit about how we're planning our streets and thinking about, um, COVID has given us this opportunity to rethink how we use public space, um, and, and really prompted us to think about public space as this as we need, um, you know, to consider with how we get people to and from places safely. So thinking about how we prioritize the efficient movement of people, thinking about how we build redundancy in our transit systems, thinking about how we create better connectivity to jobs, transit like pedestrian, and again, just creating multiple ways for people to travel, maximizing our transportation options. And these are things that can be embedded into your planning, embedded into your priorities. And then think about, again, how these, these goals translate down to the specific projects and how we evaluate and prioritize our projects. So thinking about resilience, what resilience streets are going to look like, because now is our opportunity really to build back towards resiliency and to give you some ideas that we work together with Sam Schwartz engineering and multiple local nonprofit organizations in cities like Chicago, Somerville, New York, and, uh, to think about what quarters could look like if they were more resilient.
Well, we could think about with better biking infrastructure, more transit infrastructure, more pedestrian infrastructure, and making them more accessible for people at all levels of ability. So again, that was the time to kind of take it, you know, think about how, what we want to headstart. And I think that's like, what Y you know, going back to that, why that Andy brought up, we, you know, what is the city we want? Why do we want it? How do we, what are those goals that we want to work towards? And then finally, the last thing I want to want to touch on really quickly is, uh, how public agencies should see and should invest in tools and policies that help people make smart decisions to get from a to B. And this is why we need to think about, um, just making it more, making options more seamless, and why Lyft is invested in making trumpeting transit and micro mobility front and center in the Lyft app experience.
So I've shown you an example that we have in Denver. Currently, we have, um, you know, in addition to ride share, we have scooters, transit directions, multimodal trip planning, walking, even as an options. And then just recently launching the ability to buy your transit ticket with an app. So making it easier for people to get on transit, making it easier for people to find micro mobility modes near them and make, can complete those trips all in ways that are, that, you know, the meet people where they are in terms of their personal comfort about their, their health and safety. So, um, with that, I will wrap up, um, I know that was a lot to stop, you know, just pop it out there and really looking forward to discussing this more with you all.
Oh, thanks. That was fantastic. I'm going to, um, start sharing my screen again and, um, go on to the next question. Thank you so much for that. That was fascinating. I know that, uh, with Israeli, um, evolving and changing and things like that, uh, so it's really good to see that, uh, when you read more about it, uh, I'm going to, um, go to the next question, uh, in our final question, those polling, and again, just remind you, and I sound like a broken record, but if you scroll to the bottom of your screen, you'll see a live poll number three button, and you'll get to a question that looks just like this.
Now we'll pop over there and show that question. What are the barriers to integrating, uh, mobility into, uh, your plan and your work and your products, or any of use? Again, it's another one where you can choose, I believe in a, uh, any number of these more than one. So uncertainty about the future, um, in status, um, mobility on demand who builds a service and title X overseas expertise. So it's sad. We don't all have a Chrissy or Italian Randy on our staff, um, lack of relevance to our work. Maybe you're just not quite sure if like an ability is a place yet where it fits in with majority of what you're doing or, or your largest face. So that's interesting too, or other, and I will show you some uncertainty about the future. Tell me about it. Um, we've all learned about that recently, too.
You know, we think about one of the, uh, while you're finishing answering one of the things, this project is COVID-19 was important. It's certainly reframed our scope of work a bit in the second phase of work we're doing now, a part of which has information for us, but before COVID, uh, there was the great recession and the recovery period, uh, there's usually something that's pretty disruptive happening, um, on landscapes. So it's not just this, obviously this is a big one, but there are many things happening now. Um, demographic shifts a lot of things going on that, uh, for us as MGOs and NGO partners to react. So 60 responses so far ish, um, so uncertainty about the future, uh, is a big one and type of expertise is right behind it and then other mysterious other, so, um, we will talk more about that momentarily and I will, um, go back over to the presentation and mercy, if you want to take it away, I think your is your return.
All right. Well, thank you everyone for having me. I, I joined my fellow colleagues here. Um, you have a super geek panel. We agreed to all, not wear our tapes, just to keep it a little more, less formal today. Um, but you are definitely surrounded by geeks. Who've been in the industry for quite a long time. And so working with both the public and private sector, I'm with Spartan edge consulting, I am a principal. And actually what Spartan edge focuses in on is we want to train your staff on how to be experts in each of these areas. So we have training programs that take your staff through so that they can have the confidence to lead in this dialogue in their everyday life. And we don't want it to focus just on the people who can attend conferences or webinars. We want them to be able to be able to learn on their own time at their own pace.
So even things like maintenance staff can start to understand your vision. So that's actually one of the things that we focus on. So today I have been asked to explain the difference, demystify, help understand the concepts of mobility on demand and how that fits into mobility as a service. So mobility on demand is the ability to hail a mobility service. So you don't need a reservation there provided by either public or private sector mobility, service providers, MSPs are going to be a new acronym in your lovely book of acronyms that gets bigger every year. So in, in all of those cases, you take the individual services and those are on the left-hand side of your screen, the scooters, the bikes, the micro transit, the big shuttles, things like vanpooling. Um, and whether those services are offered by the public or private, they're all going to definitely have their own backend system, a booking system that allows you to receive those services.
And that's fine because each of the individual users are going to have different needs. So they might not ever take a bike, but they might take a scooter. And so you have to look at what your individual set of users is going to require. Having those individual backends is okay until you have more than one or two in your region. And then it looks a little more confusing. So you have a lot of complicated backend going on. You can't really get to a user experience without having say six different apps on your phone. So that becomes very confusing for the end user. So mobility on demand is great because it expands first and last mile services. It builds on the backbone of public transportation, which should be the backbone of any new mobility service. It allows for continued innovation in this space. There's going to continue to be new offerings.
So you're going to have a data sharing arrangement. You're likely to predefine an API or an SDK that allows for those services to flow freely so that the end user can access multiple services. And the complexity happens on the backend, but you want to be able to accept multiple forms of payment, cash credit card. Then you move into open and contactless payments. The entire payments landscape is also massively shifting in recent years, especially over the last year as a shift to contact with is happening across the world. People don't want to be carrying or processing cash. We still have title six requirements where you have to provide those services. So what's the right balance there. And then looking at the way that you phrase your incentive, as well as optimize your contracts with those companies to offer that level of equity for all of the different types of uses in an area.
So you're, you're going to see a lot of words that are part of this framework. Account-based is one of the ways that you can offer this integrated options. And account-based backend allows you to have sort of like a bank where your mobility money rests, and it can go to multiple individual MSPs. They need to be interoperable. Incentives is actually a really good way of making the public sector reuse some of the things that they already have. So 10, we gave you a coupon for taking a later bus at a time where you have a lot of traffic so that you can space out the use of that service. You need a layer of navigation real-time information, because nobody's going to use any of your cool technology services. If the bus isn't running on time, and if it's not running on time, if they know that it's late.
So a lot of what goes into new mobility has nothing to do with technology as much as it has to do with just making your service operate effectively. And it's important to note that these aren't new, they're a little bit new in the U S but we are in the early stages of something that had been going on in Europe for four or five, six years now. So there's a lot more information available on the right way to start to think. So that is what I have for you today. That's a shortened version of a longer training program. Like I said, this available fund Spartan edges website, and the link is posted there for you. So Scott back to you.
Fantastic. Wow. That is a lot. I learned more than I thought. Uh, you know, I thought I was going to learn today on New Zealand Biola, so that's great. Um, I love the way Christie, you talked about, uh, defining a policy and really the problem you're trying to solve first, and then deciding this set of tools. You need to go out for a strategy to go after it, um, being a former NPO director, um, it does feel like a lot of times I was confronted with a legacy project on my plan or program and just was saddled with it. And really the problem may have changed dramatically, but, uh, we, we kind of went right to the answer for us without thinking too much about the real issue. So several people, a lot of people actually answer the registration questions when you signed on to do this, um, uh, webinar for us.
So I grew up in the Northern Virginia suburbs of DC and in the nineties, uh, it was quite normal for people to get in slug lines. I got in slug lines. Um, there was even, there were a couple of websites that were affiliated with, uh, DCS Metro, um, where you, you know, early internet days, basically forums where you could find out where people were going to park and you would get in the car with a stranger and get on the, uh, the HOV lanes, high occupancy lanes. Um, so this idea of sharing, I mean, that's, that's not new. My dad was hitchhiking in the seventies. Uh, my mom doesn't like me talking about that, but, uh, you know, there hitchhiking was even all whole subculture, uh, throughout the sixties and seventies. So like this idea of sharing rides is not brand spanking new. It's just how we're able to do it more and get a little bit more information.
I mean, a little bit of vetting about who we're getting in a car with. So, you know, there were certainly people pre COVID that would look at me sideways and say, wait, how did you get to the Pentagon and then ride the Metro the rest of the way into your office. You got in someone's car and you just hoped that they would get in the, in the HOV lanes. So this pre COVID, and then now post COVID, or, you know, during COVID these issues are all related to in some way risk tolerance. And I think that's important for us to have in the back of our mind with, or without pontification about which type of car and it, should it be electric or gas powered people will make decisions based on their own tolerance for risk. Um, we, we, we've seen a, this is a little sidestep from, from the cars as themselves, but just to kind of reinforce this issue of personal choice and people needing options and deciding for themselves, what is, what is acceptable behavior, um, as professional planners, we were probably, I'm guessing that many of you on this session today are familiar with vision zero policies to eliminate car deaths and crashes.
Um, it's this push for years and years to put into place policies that save lives. So in a 10 year period, it's worth noting that 15 people, one, five, 15 died of peanut allergies. So any loss of life is tragic. Um, in that same window, 400,000 people died in car crashes. So what happened in the us and what, what did we, as, as professional planners kind of see happen in front of us, there was almost this cultural insistence that we have a vision zero for peanuts. I mean, I've got kids, I know what it's like to go near a soccer field or a basketball court with a snack with peanuts in it. You can't get anywhere near it. Like culturally people have no risk tolerance for the peanut, but they'll send their 16 year old kid in a car on their own to go get groceries for the family.
And yeah, and I think Chrissy, you bring up a great point about how we're designing our sites, you know, very few for our testing sites, you know, where are the walk-ups, you know, where's the signage for our people who are coming from the street, from the bus stop, um, you know, for people to wait, uh, that are not driving there. And, and I think that's how we, again, what I was thinking about designing our streets, designing our public spaces for people at all levels, and not just for the common denominator that has been, you know, in our history for years, which is in the car.
So Kelly actually, the designing the streets, part of that conversation and, sorry, Scott, we're just kind of hijacking here. Um, but the really golden conversation in, in respect to mobility that happened over the last year, if we're not just focusing on cars as a difficult one, but the really cool thing was the increase in bike use for sure. And I have seen several of those graphs and they're phenomenal. I was on a call a while back with, um, MJ Maynard, and she was sharing RTC Nevada's graph. And it's literally like bike share bike share this year.
It's like, it's this crazy long graph of, of how much uptake, bike share has really increased. And so in designing our cities and in making sure we're funding the right decisions and getting that behavior change, just stick, how are we ensuring that we're making room for those spaces in a way that equitably addresses the needs of everyone else who has to use the sidewalk, which means we're going to be pushing people onto the streets. So how do we make the streets safer? There's, there's this kind of loop of information, but, but I do think that it's fascinating to see how quickly people got on board with riding a bike when there were less people on the road
He might going to transform, uh, that also not, not only in the, in the bicycle and community, you'll see debate about if e-bikes are cheating or not. Um, don't let NPOs, don't let anybody ever tell you that e-bikes are cheating. Um, e-bikes have the power to transform transportation in urban and suburban contexts. Uh, if there's, there's a phenomenon called the e-bike smile, you, you get on that. You can be overweight, you can be a senior citizen. It doesn't matter. You it's so easy and delightful. You can't help, but smile about how easy it is to use bicycling as transportation on e-bike <inaudible>
It brings up a great point about how we design our streets and thinking about, uh, like the trade-offs that you have. And I think that's the biggest recommendation that I have for MPOs too, is to take a good, hard look at your goals and the trade of those goals. Because I think a lot of these goals that we have might or not are, you know, there are tensions and I, and you talked about this before the tensions between them in terms of, do you prioritize, um, speed? Are you prioritizing emissions equity, which obviously should really underpin everything and making sure access for all people. Are we talking about, uh, you know, frequency of service or coverage is like the lifelong tension in planning transit. So having to address these tensions and these goals can then filter down to how you're designing your streets and prioritizing your projects for your plans and making sure that we're consistent with these, you can necessarily say, okay, yes, we are absolutely going to prioritize after transportation and bots and biking and walking mode, and then say like, okay, but here are the projects that we want to fund. And it's all highway expansion be with, you know, with maybe like a bus stop at the end. Like it doesn't work that way. So you have to really kind of heal that disconnect.
Yeah. Denise notes in the comment box. And thank you for starting to send your questions, keep them coming. Uh, most embryos not make land use decisions in a perfect world land use and transportation decisions would be made in tandem. Um, ideally, unfortunately that is not the rule. Most of us work at consequently. We find ourselves reacting to decisions made by local elected officials and man, when I was APO director. Yeah. Amen brother. But, um, that's something we, we saw quite a bit, uh, I'm going to break in and let Graham actually answer, ask a question that we got from our chat box. So agreement are there, you can jump.
Oh, I appreciate it. Yeah. Sort of, uh, hanging out behind the curtain here and really enjoying the, the dialogue. Uh, so, so thanks for, thanks for diving in everybody. And then, um, for those of you who are watching and participating now, you've probably seen me in the comments kind of, um, making sure that everybody's being able to participate. Um, one of the, well, I think actually it probably point out, uh, less of a question, more of a comment, um, that Peter submitted was, um, as far as federal funding, uh, goes, and so TNCs are micro micro mobility service, uh, uh, meeting that the sponsor has to provide ADA or an equivalent service. Um, so transit agencies might not have that paratransit capacity, uh, to meet that that need. And, uh, and then there, right that access, um, isn't, isn't guaranteed, I'm interested to, to hear, you know, specifically right on the TNC part of this, um, you know, what that funding, uh, impact might look like.
And even beyond that, you know, um, I'd be interested to hear, I think Halley never talked to you about this as we were preparing this session about some of the barriers that traditional transit funding streams might be presenting to people wanting to get more communities, more involved with interacting with micro mobility. Yeah, I got away there wants to,
I mean, I think there's a, I don't want to, um, dominate the conversation, so we'll try and keep it brief, but I think, um, our federal funding system is archaic and does not take into account a lot of like the complexities around how transportation, this plan, you know, these ideas that could be talked about in terms of Emma, you know, mobility on demand in terms of a shared system, in terms of partnerships between public and private operators and these sort of new complex ownership operating agreements funding doesn't really accommodate that yet. And so I think the first and foremost is, is really making sure and expanding these flexibility. So thinking about like I mentioned, um, you know, the bike share transit act, thinking about ways that in which, you know, funding can really new to these networks really work together and being able to, again, open up that funding source to be more flexible and, and use the, and use different and use that pool of funds for it.
So I think that is really, that is key again, and understanding that, you know, these systems are need to be, you know, to really benefit from them. The systems need to be an operable and therefore the funding needs to be flexible. Um, so that's, that's sort of when we're talking about barriers is really like, again, opening up these funds, um, when we're talking about accessibility, I think when, for us, at least from the I'm gonna speak for like Lyft perspective, accessibility is not one size fits all because I think it's common. You're not every agency has the same capability. Not every agency has the same needs and honestly not every program, um, looks the same. So I think with all of our partnerships, we come to the forefront in helping them figure out what role lift plays in whether that is being a, um, again, a late night connection for helping second and third shift workers get home, um, when transit isn't running or being, um, sort of a complimentary pair to their existing dial arise.
So for people who don't fit into their existing dial, the right system, and when they have access, um, you know, requests, demands for rides, um, you can shift, you know, ambulatory riders to lit to Lyft rides and help their system be more, um, their paratransit system be more efficient. So I think, you know, there isn't a, uh, again, a one size fits all. Um, I think we've made substantial investments in accessibility when it comes to, um, again, accommodating collapsible wheelchairs, uh, doing, uh, efforts around accommodations for people who are vision impaired or hearing impaired that they can use these platforms. And of course exploring ways of which, you know, we're meeting, um, you know, people with, uh, who may not be, um, proficient in English, language barriers, things like that. So I think like where micro mobility and new mobility fits in is thinking about this more holistic approach to reducing barriers.
This is your starting point for these kinds of things has to be from a, uh, and it doesn't have to just be the why, the why questions about why things happen. But we've gotten into this pattern for decades of treating federal funding, like some kind of new deal where it should be a car in every driveway. And that's not the point. The point is to help people get from here to there. So if we were to step back and not just say, well, this is what we've been doing. So we'll keep doing that and just ask, why are these funding sources in play, then what you have to do if you really are going to follow through and have this holistic mindset of, of mobility, you have to look for loopholes. And some of them are huge. Some of them are small, but that's the, that's the nature of transportation funding. The, the nice thing about it is the loopholes are plentiful. So just a few examples, and this, this is just a reinforced that this is a mindset issue. You, your hands are not necessarily tied. Um,
Yes. This is the positivity. Seamac, uh, FH, a flexible design standards, um, context, sensitive solutions, these programs that were federally driven and have MPO funding attached to them, or like you've got direct lines of these funding channels. These have been around since the nineties. So what it takes is people at the local and regional level to say, I want this, this is a federal program. I'm going to use it for its purpose. It's intended to be for me, my, my community to have a safe environment. Safety is our number one priority. And then there's that, that trickle-down effect of, okay, if safety is the number one priority, what does that mean? Well, that walking the original micro mobility mode walking must be faith and convenient. And if you start from there, the other things will come and come into the, um, I guess become clearer about how you handle the conversations with the adjacent local partners. So the cities, the counties who are spending their own money on projects, if you, as an MPO are treating this, like we're not, we're not looking to take a four-lane arterial and blow it up to eight lanes and make it incredibly dangerous. We're looking to preserve
What we have to be good stewards of our money, of your money, taxpayers, and of these, these federal programs. And we're going to make things so incredibly safe and appealing that everybody's going to want to come be in our region. And if you treat your transportation system that way, then the locals who are doing the land use decisions, they're going to naturally do things that connect with, with what you're doing. But from a federal funding point of view, there are so many opportunities that you can tap into right now. And there are design guides that you can hand off to the local cities and counties around you to consulting firms and say, look, this is what we want. We want this federal money and the way we're going to do it and beat the competition is to follow all these rules. So here's the FAW FAW guide to being successful at a contact sensitive funding.
Look, here's this book we're going to follow this. And so you just follow through that stuff rather than kind of falling back on this. Uh, well, we're not really sure if it's okay to get funding for these other kinds of, uh, projects like, um, increased bicycle infrastructure or integrating like curbside demand management things that relate to all these different modes integrating with each other. Um, so we're going to go back on the easy decision to just, uh, road expansion that you, you have so many, um, design guides and funding opportunities at your disposal right now it's willpower.
You are optimistic and positive. And so you don't feel like the anti Scott, Andy. That was great. Um, anything else on funding? I, this is a good time to plug another information for, and one of the eight that we talked about is on financing and funding. So, um, look for that coming up soon, too. Uh, and we know that's obviously a huge issue for MBAs and other partners. So, um,
One of the things that the funding discussion is just going to come to a head for is the competitive nature regionally of everybody putting in for their individual projects. And instead of really trying to coordinate what you want to do as a region, and we're not really set up for that kind of decision making process in many areas we should be, but we haven't actually gotten there yet. There are some regions that work together better than others. And so I think that NPOs are really good at stakeholder management. And so this is one area where you actually can lead and trying to facilitate coordination of conversations so that when you go after that funding, you're going to score higher because you've already brought all of the external potential partners to the table to say, this is what we really want to target. And that means that somebody is going to have to step off of their ego a little bit. And that's a scary thing for agencies who were all measured on individual metrics. So there's, there's a lot about stakeholder management that is going to really help proceed with being successful at winning a, a grant. And, and I want to say that TMAs are very good at stakeholder management. So that would be an additional area that those entities can work together to, to try to formulate a common goal, because maybe your agency goal is different than the agency beside you goal find a way to work together. That's really, what's going to drive real progress
And aligned right with that, with what Chris he's describing it, this, this ties to storytelling and being able to articulate what it is that you're wanting to accomplish and showing how that aligns point by point with the different types of funding that you're pursuing. And this is one of the most overlooked things, uh, that happens in funding approach, whether it's a grant application or any other kind of application for funding is having this kind of mushy, uh, jargon filled response, where it's not clear as the reviewing agency, it's not clear what you're really going to do. And so that starts with like Christie's overview of mobility on demand and mobility as a service, being able to boil things down and say, we're going to be able to plan book and pay on a single platform for all these different modes. And you know, how you have to you right now, download 10 different apps, not going to have to do it. You, you start talking in plain language and summarize exactly what you're going to do, and you're going to be surprised at how many of these things you're, you're beating out the competition of these huge complex, uh, MPOs, because you know how to articulate a good story. Yeah.
I want to just echo those points too, that the makes in terms of being able to, um, kind of like organize and collect the people who are involved with, I think that is an area that our success, you know, art that has defined our successful partnerships or the agencies and partners who have come to us and say, like, we have done the research. We have talked to me, we have come together. We are coordinated on this effort and understand what our priorities are, what our goals are and what we bring to the table and what we're working towards. And I'm like, that's great. I love having partnerships like that. That are really true collaborations where I can say like, all right, you want to get there, here are the tools that we have in our toolbox that you can use to help you get there. And then we, you know, we pilot this, we try this. We're like, all right, well, we got these learnings, let's iterate, let's make these changes. And so the ones who are able to kind of move through that process and have a clear idea about where they want to go and are, are open to exploring the different pathways we may get there, um, uh, are really the ones that we see have been the most successful.
I think that mobility on demand can definitely be scalable. And I know that they're doing some really cool projects, Texas a and M has been doing a, and I think it's a research study, Greg Winfrey, you can look him up, um, of how to do drone delivery for healthcare services, how to deliver, um, prescriptions to rural areas, utilizing drones. And so there's, there's a lot that overplays and transportation, mobility and healthcare that is also part of this conversation. I don't know if that was on your list of things to discuss in this, in this Scott, but, but I think that it's an important point.
Yeah. And there's a tendency to think of micro mobility as a kick scooter, uh, that you use for five minutes and then you leave somewhere. Um, and, and then there's also a tendency, uh, at least when I've been involved in workshops with, um, like professional planners, when talking about transportation options, it's either Manhattan or farmland where you can't see the next, your next neighbor. Um, and just the vast majority of North America is it's not either one of those two, it's always a blur in between those two. So
The direct recipient actually receives. So if you're a direct recipient of funds and you're in, in one of those areas, your 53 11 is much more flexible than an urban ice formula fund would be anyway. So just that, that extra 2 cents of, um, Andy was talking earlier about the vision that's going to be required. It's going to be a little bit, you have to have a leader with the vision to say, what are the exceptions that we can implement here? Because there's a lot of loopholes that everybody else has. And so if somebody else has found that loophole, how do you get in touch with that? Somebody else and say, tell me how you did it.
Yeah, that's the key is, um, it's, it's integration. It's not thinking about any one mode on its own. If you start thinking about just as tech people would say the user experience it's as a traveler, as somebody that needs to get to the dentist or wherever that you need to go think about the journey involved. And what's involved from the point of you putting on shoes, leaving home, and then getting there. Um, if you start thinking in those kinds of terms and, and the changes that you would make, and like, if it's more than one vehicle or more than one type of ride, think about the total journey and not just this very kind of in the weeds, but do we have enough people here to justify a bike share? It's not about, do you get bike sharing? A community of X number of people is, think bigger, think how can we move around? How can we use technology to make everyday life better?
All right, there we go. Nice work everybody. Yeah, yeah. That's gosh, that was fantastic questions, folks. That was awesome. I share your sentiment, Scott. Uh, just, just, you know, really, you know, a lot of times folks selected multitasks on these kinds of things. No way. I was really, uh, I was really drawn to it. I thought it was a nice mix of, I want to compliment the panel too for just really doing a good job of bouncing off one another. I think one of the things that really struck me was you asked the first question, Scott and the panel at the answer at least nine different ones while I entering the discussion, went into so many different areas that it was really thorough throughout. So I just want to say again, thanks again for your,
I do actually think some people were like, uh, listening more than answering the questions, uh, because we got a lot more people, Graham, you can weigh in on this, you know, participating, then we would see like answer a question. And so that was like, Oh, the new to now. I think they were there. Um, and they tuned it out a little bit, but I don't think everybody that was on answer questions.
So yeah. So, uh, you know, we had at any given time, we had like 90 people tuned in people came and went. Uh, there was a total of 270 people that like essentially popped in and then popped out right at some point in time, I, which is pretty common. Um, and, uh, and actually there's still 25 people hanging out doing something in there. Um, but the, uh, the, the questions, yeah, it was, you know, there were some really good dialogue in the comment section and all of this is captured Scott it's in the comments, um, database in the backend of our system. So you can review those and tag them and whatever you like. But I think the questions were really, I mean, I appreciated them just as much as you guys did when watching the responses come in as far as diversity of challenges and, um, yeah, it was, it was a participatory panel for sure. Sorry. I need to go guys, but thank you. If you need anything else, I'm just late for the next one. So
Organizations, TMZ, and like look at the more women existing transplant companies exist providers using providers and cities and towns to enhance their services. That's really cool. Christie did more as a principal was SpartanNash consulting firm, uh, near and dear to my own heart. I have a saw and has a used mobility on demand and abilities of service strategies often, and really a practical kind of implementation oriented approach that she's eager to share with you. And most of all, her and will give us a clear definition working definition of what Moz and mobility as a service actually are. So, um, there we go. Sorry, Andy. You are, uh, first, your first time.
Thank you, Scott. Uh, let me do a quick mic check. You can hear me okay. I assume. All right. Well, uh, that opening poll was interesting, uh, MPOs obviously highest representation today. Uh, but I want to be sure to welcome the other category in that poll. Uh, I'm not sure who that is, but I love a good mystery. Um, this is exciting that so many people are registered for this event. I'm looking forward to this, uh, this panel discussion. Um, my entire career has been in the mobility industry in, in some way or another, uh, big corporates startups, um, but always related to mobility and transportation planning. So NPOs have, uh, in, in percentage been very high in, uh, either people I'm working with on projects or direct clients. Um, the focus of my consulting work is help clients plan systems, technology and public spaces that are designed for human needs.
Um, that's of course, harder and harder when you get into broad regional planning, but always something that we've got to focus on. So for me, my happy place is asking questions like why and what if, but related to the built environment. So I'm interested in helping planners bring big ideas into focus. It doesn't mean every big idea is going to be advanced or ends up being practical, but starting with those questions of why. And what if, uh, are exciting to me? I, I often tell people my parents helped me buy a civil engineering degree many years ago, so I may have that, but that's not what I study. I study people. So thinking about today's forum and what to focus on at the beginning, um, I thought it would be beneficial to describe kind of how I see my place in the world right now. I, I find myself living in this Venn diagram of two worlds and both related to, uh, to public infrastructure.
The one is the world of emerging technology. It's exciting to me, uh, innovation that moves faster than we can predict and changes our day to day behavior. Um, I'm a gen X-er who is happy with change. I, it doesn't bother me at all, but the other world that I'm in is new urban ism. So that's walkable streets, bicycle friendly neighborhoods, uh, that's timeless design philosophy at a human scale to use some of our planning jargon. So these two worlds are often considered to be in conflict. If you go to a conference related to one or the other, you'll often hear, yeah, we would be able to do this if not for this other. So, uh, I, I think that that conflict comes because of the basic language barrier between these two. So you might say in that sense, I'm trying to be a Rosetta stone for these industries.
I really see a profitable overlap. Um, thinking again about this, this place where I dwell, I know I'm not alone in here. So I, I think metropolitan planning organizations have a huge opportunity in this Venn diagram, this peaceful overlap, but you can imagine of ancient design and advanced technology. Just a couple of quick examples. I know that ubiquitous internet will free us to work close to home or even completely eliminate the commute. I know that mobile phones make bicycling more accessible, and I know that planning for integrated digital mobility platforms will better serve the public interests than road widenings. And that's something as professional planners or engineers. We have codes of ethics that are directly linked to serving the public interest. Um, Scott, if you could hit the next slide
And we asked what the biggest challenge was for your organization, integrated micro mobility. We know from the first question that, uh, it's, uh, there's quite a few that haven't yet done that. Um, so rapid pace of change and lack of understanding the part of staff, not as many good examples of how this is done somewhere else. And, uh, interestingly, a lack of understanding of the subject, about waking officials for those that don't know is, are really at their heart. A group of, uh, officials, uh, usually elected that, uh, or appointed that comprise the policy board. And they have to make those decisions about whether the MBO spends its time and resources on. So they don't know what a micro mobility is or what I can do for them, their communities that may be a harder to advance.
The other question that you answered was what changes will likely sick after COVID-19? I think this is really the $64 question for many, many people across the country, in the world, um, uh, teleworking. And I would agree with that one, I think that's going to be around, um, for a while. I'm hearing more and more stories of people at larger companies that are getting me doing that opportunity, not to come back into the office, um, even after, and to make some size increases in Greenways and Chels, not quite as much, um, remote public engagement. I do think we've all gotten used to this and some of the inherited advantages it's not perfect. Um, uh, and then dispersion into smaller communities, quite a few people, uh, chose that as a choice for, um, what's going to sit around and be a long standing kind of post COVID effect.
And that has, you know, that last one, this version does have some impacts on transportation, obviously, too. Um, we will be doing one of our forums is on demographic and land use shifts. Uh, so we'll let everybody be assigned to up here. Um, no one that was going to transpire to, so here we are, we've gotten to our forum topics that we asked the panelists to address. And I will remind you again, please, please, please type in your questions in the comment box. We're going to go over the flora a little bit and, um, just went to our panelists kind of FreeWheel and bit. I may throw some, uh, trauma and water to get you going, but, uh, uh, I'm going to start off because this is what I want to know about. I think a real dark horse is car sharing. And if the trends in inequity vote rural urban small town want to have you continue as Andy noted in one of his podcasts.
And I do listen, um, that, uh, thing that sits for 95% still for most people is their car. Why do you need to have your own just as we never thought, Kelly about jumping into a Lyft vehicle is stranger or sharing the bicycle and strangers? Um, I think there might come a day in the U S I get, I think this is more, um, taken hold faster in European countries, perhaps other places. Uh, but I think car sharing is going to be very important next five to 10 years. So again, we are focusing on what videos can have you sent about on their one range plans. What do you guys have to say about that, Andy? I haven't heard your voice. I want to make sure you're still crack.
I just hit the snooze button. Um, this is, uh, this is an interesting one. Um, so this is, this is a topic that was hotly debated among planners, again, in that same kind of Venn diagram that I was describing, uh, where you've got people. And I include myself in the all powerful bike lobby as we joke, but bike friendly or bike advocates and kind of technology and integrated mobility. There's this kind of back and forth about what about the car and with, or without a global pandemic North Americans need a car for the foreseeable future. I mean, that's just not going to go away, unless again, there's some extreme thing. Like suddenly the fuel just runs out entirely, but for the foreseeable future, um, we, we need motor vehicles in some way. Um, now that we're faced with this issue of, well, I guess before the COVID issue, one thing I want to touch on why I think this was such an interesting debate pre COVID, um, it, it entirely depended on what your, your views on car sharing and ride hailing entirely dependent on where you lived.
And actually part of, part of that is in this, in the letting go of the ego of controlling the situation is truly being in partnership with your communities, going to the hyper local neighborhood level and involving those advocates and not simply here's your top down solution. So we think is going to meet your needs, having them in partnership with you create the genuine solution set that can actually meet their needs. Not because you've told them what the solution is, but because you've listened and involved them from the beginning of that strategy to say, this is what would actually help us, because actually in many times it doesn't have anything to do with technology, but having their buy-in going into your federal grant application would be significant in, in helping your school.
Yeah. Um, we got, uh, I got to tell you where we're getting close to time and I had another great question again from Denise, and this is just on fire here. Um, I got to say, this is one it's when I'm on mine a little bit too. Um, she says our planning areas include areas that do not have destinies to be well-served by transit and micro transit, um, metropolitan planning organizations, or planning area boundaries as a center city, 50,000 population or more. And then they have, uh, sometimes obviously several millions, um, um, and then a halo of smaller towns perhaps around them, uh, separated by a large expanses of really pretty, sometimes pretty rural areas. So, uh, that's a great question. Is there, is that a perception or reality right now is that there really isn't much of a role for, uh, for micro mobility and middle-size communities. And so we're not, uh, what's the next step for the more modest sized communities that aren't, uh, DC or, or, or Portland or Dallas.
So in January of this year, I joined the board of an entity called Phoenix mobility rising, and they are exclusively doing projects in rural communities and partnering with entities like a RP to deliver services outside of what you would typically think of as math. And I believe strongly if we are not creating solutions that work specifically for rural areas that scale into urban areas, then we completely missed the Mark on the opportunity that math can really give us. At this point in history, we have to be looking at not just services that can meet the needs of dense urban areas. I've actually spent a lot of my personal career in rural and suburban areas and identifying the, the ways that you interact in those communities. I started vanpool. I started ample program in, um, the North pole Alaska, and the way that I marketed that at 40 below, by the way, 40 below going door to was going to the local salon hairdressers know everybody in the community. And I believe that a lot of these technology who are really focused on that super big picture are missing the opportunity of what that local neighborhood interaction can be.
I know that obviously funding is always going to be an issue in those rural areas. And I think to add to this point, one of, one of my concerns right now, and this shift of people who have traditionally lived in urban areas who really have moved out and they can work from anywhere. So why not? And the real estate market everywhere in rural areas is just off the charts. It's terrifying because that shift happened at the end of taking the census. And so you are going to have a burden and a lot of these areas for a number of years where they have more population, then they have funding coming in for that doesn't reflect what their new population actually is because now we're behind. So I'm a little bit concerned of also what that looks like, but I fully believe that mass mass should be scalable.
Oh gosh. Wow. Okay. Throwing that on me really quickly. Um, um, I'm going to, I think steal Andy's point that he brought up and to drive home about flexibility and like in thinking creative, does it create creatively? Because honestly, um, so much of the work that I think we're doing and lifting up on the private side, you know, we are, uh, limited by the vision of public agencies. You know, we are willing to explore options and figure out ways to leverage our technology for, for you, for public agencies. If, if they're willing to kind of come along for the ride with us. So, you know, cause we're all working towards the same goal of trying to improve people's lives with better transportation. So, you know, what does that look like? It can look like a lot of different things, but we really have to, we have to, we have to have someone, I think on the agency side, who's willing to say like, yes, let's, let's try this out. Let's see how it goes. Um, let's try and do it better. So yeah. Thanks Sandy.
Yeah. I want to say MPOs TMAs have great experience in partnering and do not be afraid to partner with the private sector in this way. I, I have worked with public sector and private sector over the years and it's hilarious. Whenever I go to work for a company, I have this people almost don't trust you anymore. It's like guys, I'm the same person.
I'm the exact same person that worked with you before. And I'm sure Kelly experienced this. When she went from working for a doc to working for lists, you want to embrace partnerships, go in eyes wide open. It's just like any other business you want to be fully informed. But the reason why some of these have been successful is because there has been a layer of trust that has been developed. So if you are having ethical conversations that are driving this partner opportunity, it's a great way of expanding your reach,
I would say like, I led off challenging you to think like an artist, ask, ask big questions. Like why, why do we do this? What if we did this other thing? What if we serve the public interest and you start pushing your brain to think bigger rather than reacting to what you see on the ground today, ask why and ask, what if like an artist would you, the goal is persuasion. You want to persuade funding people with the bags of cash that you are the MPO that deserves the funding. So that goes back to storytelling. So as you're thinking through these whys and these what ifs, then put together memorable stories about how you are going to use technology to make your community an amazing place to be.
That is awesome. Um, yeah. Think, uh, think slow, slow, slow, not always fast and focusing on the problem first and go for the solution. I love it. So thanks. Thanks. Sorry panel. This man is we can do this every week and I don't going to get tired of it. I just, it's just fantastic. Thank you, Kelly. Christine, Andy, thanks to all the people. 267, I think Graham said to them, Oh, we can put.com. They're trying to Lytics. Here's our information forearms. All the connection actually talks about several of these things, funding, financing, demographic shifts. Um, so, uh, engagement, social equity questions, which is, uh, an important part of, um, uh, ability to so, um, thanks to everyone we are around. Um, we will, uh, get back in touch with you or wherever for more of these forums and how to get it's a recording of this. So we're at our limit. Thanks. One more time for the panelists. You did a fantastic job. You did an incredible job with my chair.
So this people make choices about their own family and their own behavior about what they feel is acceptable. So that, that little tangent I think is, is important for us to realize that this, this is not necessarily about, uh, what's the future of technology and, and how clean is it going to be? When we hop into a car with strangers, we have to understand people behave based on how they perceive their own tolerance for risk. Um, I think going forward though, it is car-sharing is not going away. Going away. The box on wheels might change shapes. It might become autonomous. It might become connected to other boxes on wheels. It might be semi-autonomous who knows if that's going to be five years from now or 15 years from now. Um, but the act of getting in other vehicles with other people is just not going anywhere. W w the great opportunity for us as planners and for you as MPOs, the really tremendous opportunity is planning your funding for infrastructure and systems that make solo driving inconvenient and uncomfortable. And I say that as a car owner, make it inconvenient for me to just choose to hop in the car and drive alone everywhere. And these other modes are going to start to pick up,
Look at our COVID response. So our testing sites, our vaccination sites, the, the access to food in a lot of cities, when you lost your job and needed to go into a food line, cars, cars is our answer to this. This time in history hits. So number one, as a person in the field, Oh, a little terrified. I know a lot of friends who haven't owned a car in Portland in decades, and they went and bought a car last year, our prices aren't going down when so many people don't have a job. So this is a little terrifying. Um, so I look at that and say, we have got to figure out how to get people to share. And that's one of the things that as an industry and as a trying to nudge behavior change, it's just one of the hardest things we have to deal with.
I mean, every, every single one of the people on this call, that's pretty much all they do. So everything old is new again. And in mod and math, that's pretty much transportation, demand management, 3.0, and you're all experts in the fact that it is extremely difficult to make someone change a behavior. So early in my career, I worked for a vanpool company and I could sit in a group formation meeting with you at an employer and tell you you're going to save six, $6,000 this year, by shifting to this. And your employer is 100% covering the cost of this band pool. And people would still hem and haw, and you'd have a really difficult time convincing them to join, and you might get two or three, and that might grow over the years, but it's, it's very, it's still a question, Mark. How do you actually get people to share that service because cars are clearly not going away.
Yeah. And I think this is the, the boogeyman in the room. I think when we always talk about this is land use, you know, I want to talk, you know, that, and this is what we are seeing with the trend you talk when you, you notice that the trend that people do, but things are going to stick is dispersing to smaller communities. And that when we have technology today, that allows us, you know, from thousands of miles away to join meetings and to buy groceries or to do things like this, like, do we need to be close by and more? And we are seeing people choosing to, or for a variety of reasons, you know, due to income family, you know, that they are, that people are trending away from the necessarily the, the environments that are conducive to some of these like, shared technology.
So like when you think about car share, I mean, absolutely. I think car share as a, as a, as a non-car owner, who's really been staying out, trying to stay away from, you know, buying it during, due to COVID and being able to just get around based with, um, you know, bikes, transit, and Lyft. Um, it's hard when you don't and using car share as well when I, if we're going on a longer trip, but if you live in a more suburban area where it just like, how do you even get to the place to get a car? You know, how do you even access, like are during that's actually something that, um, Lyft is explored? You know, we've actually started, um, testing, um, lift rentals in various cities and figuring any kind of like tapping into this fleet in the third party fleet. And one of the things that comes with it is, um, Lyft credit to, and from the car pickup space, because we, you shouldn't have to get a car ride, get to get a car to access the car.
So you do want to allow that kind of innovation. And what we're seeing so far is the originating sources for project funding are, are really pilots. So you have some expanded programs like Kelly mentioned, Seamac congestion, mitigation, air quality, which I know you guys are well familiar with. Um, and then they have pilot programs that actually do expand the ability to offer these services. The problem with a pilot is now you don't have a long-term strategy of how to keep them going. I'm sure that that's something that Kelly is going to talk to us more about in the Q and a, but you have the first version of those pilot funding sources was the mod sandbox. There's actually a lot of great information on FDA's website that you can go back to and look and see what outcomes have been posted. Because now we're so far along the lines of some of these innovation programs that we have actual research studies that have come as a result.
The more up to date of those grants is aimed that, um, IMI integrated mobility innovation, and the IMI grants actually are starting or continuing to go on right now. So they're, they're not going to have the outcomes, but maybe next year, those will be posted. And then ATC MTD is a little bit more recent, but it's, it's newer funding that is not pilot based necessarily that you can do longer term projects. So when you were looking at mobility on demand and how it fits into mobility as a service, what you're really looking at is the fact that mobility service providers provide the actual services for mobility on demand. I can receive those individual services without a reservation to enhance public transportation, to create a mass framework. Math is not an app, and I don't care how many people want to tell you it is an app.
It's believe me when I say it's not. So math is a framework for fulfilling public policy goals. By combining all public and private transportation services in a region through a central interface, whether your interface is mobile or web or phone, you should be able to plan book and pay for integrated mobility services that are optimized to equitable outcomes for individual preferences. That sounds easy enough, except that in practice, you actually have to make those things happen. So, first of all, you have to start with a public policy goal. It's, it's, it's about fulfilling a public policy goal. So what is your goal? Is it congestion? Is it environment? Is it equity identify your goal upfront because that is the why that frames the rest of how so in the, how you have the central interface, that then must integrate all of those mobility options that are optimized to equitable outcomes for individual preferences.
What that actually means equitable outcomes, individual preferences, if individual packages, because in a lot of, uh, the, the private sector approach to mobility as a service, you have a set of subscriptions. There's a contracts and agreements that offer a set of package services that an individual has access to. And a lot of times they pay upfront for the month for that service. So if those individual preferences aren't met with an equitable layer from the public sector, looking at mass in an operating framework, as opposed to that business model framework, you're not going to have that level of equitable service. So it's very important to identify the policy that you're looking to address and then utilize the technologies to meet that policy. So you have the interface of all of the individual mobility on demand services. And the integrate section is really where that layer of technology is happening.
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