Peace and Planning

Last week I had the opportunity to share some of my dissertation research at the Royal Geographical Society’s annual conference in London. Given the title of my presentation “The Care of Mobility: Toward a Moral Framework for Streets,” I was thrilled to see so much discourse on care in mobility. Care was not only a common framing in entire sessions and standalone presentations focused on transportation, but also emerged as a frequent topic in more general panels.

And yet, it’s not clear to me what we talk about when we talk about care in transportation. Is it an analytical tool? Is it a design approach? Is it a policy objective? Is it an ethical standard? When conference talks include passing references to key scholars like Tronto and Noddings but do not offer rigorous analysis explicitly informed by ethics of care concepts or do not engage the core ideas and motivating questions that underpin critical theoretical perspectives within ethics of care literature, we risk care being interpreted as something soft, as something nice to have, as something that lacks legitimacy or specificity in a discipline that is so often dominated by technical specifications or determined by political considerations. Furthermore, in a field where topics like equity, justice, sustainability, and resilience are ubiquitous (and invoked so frequently and so loosely some might argue they no longer carry the significance they used to), is care serving up something different, and necessary? If so, how can we ensure it does not become co-opted into something it’s not meant to be?

In my presentation, I used qualitative data I gathered during 24 interviews with bike bus participants across the US and through ride-alongs with 14 bike buses along the East Coast to show how care might be used as an analytical lens. First, I discussed how someone interested in mobility of care (a term coined by Inés Sánchez de Madariaga to describe the trips – often not captured in transportation planning – made by caregivers, who disproportionately tend to be women) might examine the data. They might bring questions to it like: “What are the hidden care burdens (e.g., route scouting, safety marshaling, emotional regulation of anxious children) involved in running a bike bus?” or “In what ways does the bike bus alleviate or compress the “second shift” of morning care routines for participating families?”. Such an analysis might suggest that a policy implication would be to pay bike bus organizers, which is indeed a topic that circulates in the bike bus space. While my research is not using the mobility of care lens – and in turn I cannot suggest a policy recommendation one way or another – this line of inquiry is nonetheless an interesting one to consider.

Second, I explained what analyzing my data using each of Joan Tronto’s five phases/moral elements of care – Caring about / Attentiveness, Caring for / Responsibility, Care-giving / Competence, Care-receiving / Responsiveness, Caring with / Solidarity and Trust – might look like. For example, I offered the following reflection from an interview to show how this particular bike bus organizer had recognized a need that existed (that riders needed more protection at the back of the bike bus from the danger posed by car drivers approaching from behind), took responsibility for meeting that need (deciding to position herself at the back of the bike bus to serve as a buffer between the car and the young riders), and doing the actual work of leading the group and doing it well (by learning kids’ names so she could tell them to ride with greater caution when a car driver started to pass).

“We’ve had people behind us honking so I ride caboose out of concern. I can see everything in front of me and know most kids’ names so can yell out to get over…I put a bubble machine on the back rack because car drivers do not want to get bubbles on their windshields and I try to ride slower if I feel like the drivers are going too fast.”

While she did not directly mention asking young riders if her actions were meeting their needs, I would argue she nonetheless demonstrates responsiveness through changing tactics to better meet the needs of the bike bus by installing a bubble-maker on her bike to further deter aggressive car drivers. While this particular quotation did not highlight any actions the organizer took to collectively develop agreements on how to share care responsibilities amongst other adult volunteers, this organizer did (like many others) speak to that dynamic elsewhere in the interview.

At one point, I had considered using this coding approach for my analysis. Indeed, there are certainly tidbits that are useful to other bike bus organizers, like bubble-makers as an effective deterrent for aggressive drivers. However, my research is firmly grounded in the commitment to impact change in the systems that perpetuate the conflict system of vehicular violence. As such, I quickly realized that while intriguing, such an analytical approach was not altogether generative. In other words, is it at all surprising that bike bus leaders exhibit care in their efforts? What does distinguishing between the different phases/moral elements of care offer that is practically useful? Perhaps such an analysis might lend itself to meaningful insights, but it was not clear what policy prescription such an analysis would provide other than the incredibly obvious notion that bike buses should not *have* to exist in the first place. However, due to both behavioral and structural failures – hostile driving, dangerous design, negligent policy – parents and caregivers across the country have no other choice but to risk their lives if those most marginalized in our transportation systems – our youth – want to claim their right to the street with at least a semblance of safety.

My research suggests that there is a third way to engage ethics of care in mobility discourse. Taking inspiration from Selma Sevenhuijsen who argued “that care should be seen as a democratic practice, and that democratic citizenship supposes that everybody would be guaranteed equal access to the giving and receiving of care”, I posed the question: “What if we designed our streets to democratize care?” In my presentation, I argued that such an approach, which I termed the care of mobility, would require three fundamental transformations in our society, and that these would have ramifications at the structural, cultural, and direct/interpersonal levels simultaneously. First, the rights of people outside of cars must be respected; both their rights to exist on public streets and their rights to demand safe, accessible streets in public forums. Second, responsibility must be redistributed to rectify power imbalances and harm differentials of different modes of transportation and the systems that exacerbate those power and harm dynamics. Lastly, vulnerability must be reconsidered. I covered this at length in a previous post but in this presentation I outlined what I think of as two types of vulnerability: imposed and inherent. In “trying” (failing) to engineer out the imposed version – the vulnerability created by large vehicles and reckless operators and detrimental street design – we have also (I would argue purposefully) engineered out the inherent version – the fact that we are, as one interviewee said “just flesh and bones” and that such fragility is actually what makes us human…both because it is a simple fact of being a living being on this earth, and because it enables – indeed requires – us all to be dependent on others. We so often frame dependence as a weakness rather than acknowledging it as a foundational condition of our humanity.

I ended my presentation with the following proposition: “We cannot begin to repair the social fabric of our society without recognizing the interdependence of our movement.” We live in a time of deep divides and staggering isolation thanks to politicians who peddle fear and social media companies that warp our realities and our feelings of worth. Of course, we also have built environments in many parts of the world – and most of the US – with distances that are only possible to navigate independently in a metal and glass box. What I think is radical about the care of mobility as a framework – why I think it is an analytical tool, a design approach, a policy objective, and yes, an ethical standard – is that it challenges what we have grown to expect of each other as human beings. It questions what we have been forced to expect from our governments and the social contract it fails to uphold on our streets. And it reintroduces us to our own humanity. I firmly believe that we will not be able to tackle our society’s most existential threats unless and until we can cultivate care on our streets.

Beyond grappling with meta questions about the future of humanity and the role of streets in reconstituting a true commons with academic audiences, my visit to the UK also offered me the gift of stumbling across a beautiful example of care of mobility in practice. While on a stroll in the lovely Glasgow Green, I got to experience firsthand the spectacular Sunny Cycles team (led by the amazing Carol Thompson) and their incredible work to make biking more accessible to people with limited mobility.

Back in London, I also got to “compete” in the Brompton World Championships relay race. I can think of no better way to disrupt conceptions of what a bike race – and our attendant misperceptions of what riding a bike is or “should” be – looks like than riders dressed up in costumes and toting their dogs in decorated bike bags. My Brompton, Tulip, has unlocked more of the world – and my research – than I could have imagined, and to be surrounded by hundreds of others whose lives have been transformed by the simple yet elegant design of a folding bike (and the global community it has inspired) was an expected joy from my time in Britain.

There’s a lot more to say about care of mobility as a moral framework and how it could inform street design and transportation policy, but for now, I invite you to get curious – what comes to mind when you imagine a peaceful transportation system? ☮️🚸