It’s still early in the year, but here’s my first coup de coeur (crush) of 2022. Discovered through this article at The Verge, the Equitable Commute Project in NYC was created to help disadvantaged communities who face especially long commutes, which creates barriers to employment and harm overall well-being. They provide fleet discounts and innovative finance, outreach and education, and perhaps the most forward-looking part of the whole program: workforce development to “prepare New Yorkers who face barriers to employment for jobs in the micro-mobility industry, which is expected to grow to a $300-500 billion market by 2030.” And it’s not only happening in New York!

Some mistakes are irreversible, and some are quite tame, all of them are opportunities to learn. We’ll see if city planners can learn from the mistakes of their forbearers. As virtually everyone is pushing for a transition to electric vehicles, it’s an opportunity to right the mistake of fossil fuels in cities.

Chances are you’ve heard of Universal Basic Income (everyone in a population getting a certain amount of money every month, regardless of employment status or income), but have you heard of “universal basic mobility”? Like many UBI pilot programs, it's not really universal but it's an intriguing proposition nonetheless: if local government provides a stipend for mobility, what kind of change does that bring to the lives of people with very limited income?

I’d suggest reading Cop26 leaders asking “what if we just gave up cars?” for the topic itself, but also as an example of the magnitude of change possible as well as the very strong headwinds blowing against some of those changes.