Transfers – Call for papers

Call for Papers
Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies

Transfers, now entering its third year of publication, is emerging as a key
peer-reviewed platform for new research into the practices, experiences and
representations of disparate mobilities. Our newly expanded Editorial Team
invite submissions that address our central concern – to “rethink mobility” in
the widest possible terms and from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives.
Intellectually rigorous, wide ranging, and conceptually innovative, Transfers
combines the empiricism of traditional mobility history with more recent theoretical approaches in the social sciences and the humanities. We interpret ‘transfers’ in its many senses: to move, shift, transmit, transform, change, and convey.

The journal’s scholarly essays, film, book and exhibition reviews, artwork, photography and special features are devoted to the ways in which
mobilities have been enabled, shaped and mediated across time and through
technological changes. We are interested in analyses of past and present
experiences of vehicle drivers, passengers, pedestrians, migrants and
refugees; accounts of the arrival and transformation of mobilities in different
nations and locales; and investigations into the kinetic processes of global
capital, technology, chemical and biological substances, images, narratives,
sounds, and ideas.

We especially encourage contributions that ‘rethink mobility’ through a
transnational, multimodal, or transdisciplinary perspective, and those dealing
with subversive (non-hegemonic) and subaltern (non-Eurocentric) mobilities,
including a focus on the infrastructures and practices of mobility that
contribute to uneven forms of access.

See http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/trans/

Editor:

Gijs Mom, Eindhoven University of Technology

Associate Editors:

Georgine Clarsen, The University of Wollongong
Nanny Kim, University of Heidelberg
Peter Merriman, University of Aberystwyth
Mimi Sheller, Drexel University, Philadelphia
Heike Weber, Technical University of Berlin

Editorial Advisor:

Cotten Seiler, Dickinson College, Carlisle

Cycling in Philly

National Bike to Work Day

18 May 2012

Typical bike space in Philadelphia. Credit: Jacob Bjerre Mikkelson

Bike to Work Day is an important way to demonstrate the demand for better cycling infrastructure in Philadelphia. Washington D.C.’s September 2010 launch of Capital Bikeshare, has put more than 1,000 red rental bikes on the streets, accounting for nearly 2 million trips to date, and contributing to a 169% increase in the number of people commuting to work by bike (now at 3.1%).  New York and Los Angeles have begun to implement even larger bike-sharing systems, along with new bike lane infrastructure, and it is crucial that Philadelphia also do so in order to support a better urban environment and the kind of innovation economy that Drexel University hopes to develop here.

Philadelphia’s Greenworks 2035 plan specifically calls for efforts to be made to increase trips made by bicycles, and that this should be done by expanding infrastructure. It also explicitly calls for better bicycle connections to 30th St. Station, where Drexel University can be crucial to bringing this plan to life through its Strategic Plan. On average, 5 of every 100 commuters in Center City, West Philly and South Philly is on a bicycle (5.4%, 4.15% & 4.73% commuting by bike, respectively). 2 out of every 5 cyclists, is a woman.

The Spruce Street and Pine Street buffered bicycle lanes are the first the City has installed at the cost of a travel lane. As reported in the “Crosstown Connection | Pilot Project Findings” from MOTU by Andrew Stober (December, 2009), the Spruce and Pine street bike lane implementations of 2009/2010 have slowed the fastest driving cars, while simultaneously creating a safe cycling environment, and increasing order and smoothness of automobile vehicle flow. Ridership increased, and both serious vehicular crashes and fender benders saw significant decreases, while enabling the same average motor vehicle speed. Yet, two years later, in 2011, when the City tried to parlay those successes into support for two more buffered bike lanes (cutting through the East side of Center City on 10th and 13th Street), the plan was met with great resistance. It is time for Philadelphia to catch up with other major cities in the USA in implementing a modern bicycle infrastructure that will have beneficial economic and quality of life impacts across the city.

Dr. Sheller, Director of the mCenter, supervised two University of Arts students, Nicolas Coia and Dominic Prestifillipo, in their thesis for the Masters in Industrial Design on bike infrastructure in Philly, who will be hosting a panel discussion at Next American City’s Storefront for Urban Innovation (2816 W. Girard Ave) on May 31st, 6:30-8pm. The event on “The State of Cycling in Philadelphia” will have a short presentation on the challenges and opportunities of implementing bike infrastructure in Philadelphia. For more info:

http://americancity.org/events/detail/bringing-bike-share-to-philly

Rudin Center Talk, NYU

Emerging Cultures of Mobility

mobilities Center Director Dr. Mimi Sheller Gave An invited Talk at New York University’s Rudin Center for transportation policy and management

Thursday, April 7, 2011 @ 8:30 AM

Slides from Dr. Sheller’s Talk can be downloaded here:

Slides for Emerging Cultures of Mobility Talk by Mimi Sheller [pdf]

How Americans Get to Work - US Census Bureau 2007

Dr. Mimi Sheller, Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, gave a talk on “Emerging Cultures of Mobility: Stability, Openings, Prospects” at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, New York University, on April 7th, 2011, 8:30-10:00am in the Puck building, 295 Lafayette Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY. The talk is based on her chapter in the forthcoming book:

Automobility in transition? A socio-technical analysis of sustainable transport, Eds. René Kemp, Geoff Dudley, Frank Geels, and Glenn Lyons (Routledge, 2011)

Link: View a Trailer for the book here

Abstract:

In recent years there have been significant shifts in the planning, design and funding of major urban infrastructure projects to include “sustainable mobility” systems, including improved bicycling infrastructure; congestion charging and dynamic road pricing; new investments in energy-efficient public transport systems, light-rail systems and high-speed railway; the emergence of car-sharing and public bike-sharing schemes; and the design of pedestrian-friendly streets and smaller electric vehicles. Yet arguably none of these niche-level changes has seriously challenged the existing system of automobility, which continues to be the dominant mode of transportation, especially in the United States. The USA especially trails behind other advanced economies in bringing about a transition in its transportation and mobility systems. Building on previous work on cultures of automobility, this talk argues for a culturally-based understanding of the problems of system lock-in and potential transition. It aims to assess the openings and prospects for the emergence of new cultures of mobility in the United States, while also being realistic about the stabilities in the current mobility system. It begins with a model of culture as a combination of practices, networks, and discourses, each of which is enacted across multiple levels in the transition process. The next section turns to examples of cultural mechanisms that have stabilized the dominance of automobility in the United States, as well as instances of openings in the regime at both the national and urban scale. Finally, it concludes with some speculative ideas about the emergence of a more far-reaching technological – and cultural – transition arising out of the dynamics of new information and communication technologies entering the realm of transportation planning, design, and innovation.

For more information please contact:

Marilyn Lopez

Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management

New York University

Robert F. Wagner Graduate School

295 Lafayette St, 2nd Floor

New York, New York 10012

P: 212.992.9865

F: 212.995.4166

http://wagner.nyu.edu/rudincenter/

Mobilities in Motion Conference Update

Conference Flyer (pdf)

The Center for Mobilities Research and Policy is hosting the international conference “Mobilities in Motion: New Approaches to Emergent and Future Mobilities” from March 21st-23rd, 2011, in Behrakis Hall South. Keynote speakers include: Rina Cutler, Deputy Mayor for Transportation and Utilities, Philadelphia; Caren Kaplan, University of California, Davis; Deborah Cowen, University of Toronto; and Adriana de Souza e Silva, IT University of Copenhagen/North Carolina State.

In the near future the carbon-based mobilities of the 20th century will likely be replaced by alternative transport systems and fuels, and perhaps less mobile societies. At the same time, new mobile social media, locative social networks, and digital arts are handling movement and connectivity in new ways, creating new kinds of hybrid public spaces. Join us as we discuss the future of mobilities.

This event is open to the Drexel Community and other academics, but registration is required: https://deptapp.drexel.edu/mobilities/

Please see the Conference webpage for some updates and to download the full program.

Battles of mobilities

Battles of mobilities? utopias for a different future

Special session at the 4th Nordic Geographers Meeting in Roskilde, Denmark, May 24-27, 2011

Planning cities with the goal of economic growth as the primary objective has been the way forward for cities during the last century.

Because of the firmly seated discourse that more mobility gives more growth, city planning has been centred on creating infrastructural systems, dominated by an autologic. The private car has been seen as the starting point for growth, alongside the logistic networks).

Today, we see cities where the consequences of these planning strategies are visible and showing. Especially larger cities are articulating the unintended consequences of mobility and their infrastructural systems. Sudjic (2007) conveys this in the book The Endless City saying that: “it may well be that cities are more often the product of unintended consequences than of anything else” (35).

Between 25-50 % of city space are used to facilitate automobility thus automobility has a strong grip on everyday life, and constitutes a great challenge for cities. It occupies a large amount of space, space that could be used for social and cultural activities.

Thus the question of mobility can be a discussion of equity and democracy in the city. Questioning the right and access to city space can for instance be seen through the international monthly event called Critical Mass where cyclists take over the streets stating “we are not blocking traffic, we are traffic”.

Mobility research has evolved during the last decade to understand and grasp these battles and new ways of understanding the city. New mobile social media, innovative social networks and arts are questioning movement and connectivity in new ways. Thus new cultures of mobility are emerging, as people challenges environmental issues, this demands all kinds of different solutions, new thinking, experimentation and living differently.

The session will  explore these themes, among others:

• Mobility conflicts and power struggles
• The right to the city
• Ambivalences of mobile everyday life
• Sustainable mobility

Interested participants should send an abstract of maximum 300 words before the 20th of January 2011 to Malene Freudendal-Pedersen (malenef@ruc.dk) or Jonas Larsen (jonslar@ruc.dk)

Malene Freudendal-Pedersen

Assistant professor, PhD

Roskilde University

Department for Environmental, Social and Spatial Change

House 10.1

Box 260

4000 Roskilde

Moving Minds

Moving Minds – After the Car

Congress on Sustainable Urban Mobility

30 November 2010 – Brussels (Kaaitheater, Sainctelettesquare 20)
Keynote speaker: prof. John Urry (UK) + experts from Amsterdam, Brussels, Stockholm and Zurich

SIMULTANEOUS TRANSLATION  E > NL/FR & NL > E/FR / Conference Fee: 10€ / Registration: tickets@kaaitheater.be

We are still stuck in a traditional mindset when it comes to mobility, whereby the increasing car and truck traffic determines policy, which then inevitably leads to more infrastructure. However, many foreign cities have since shown that thinking and acting differently in the area of mobility is possible.  Moving Minds / After The Car aims to highlight these good examples and use the imagination to reflect upon a new paradigm of mobility.

PROGRAM
Welcome speech
BRUNO DE LILLE, Secretary of State for Mobility in the Brussels Capital Region

* The road to nowhere
Impact of traffic on urban livability, environment and health
NINA RENSHAW, deputy director of the European NGO Transport & Environment (T&E)

* The Future (Unplugged) – Energy beyond oil
RUDY DHONT, lecturer KHLeuven

*Envisioning the Future: Keynote lecture
JOHN URRY, Distinguished professor, Dept. of Sociology, University of Lancaster (Auteur van / Author of After the car)

* Stockholm: A city on the Way?
Congestion taxation, road development, and public transport as key components in Stockholm’s strategy for sustainable mobility
KAROLINA ISAKSSON, Swedish National Road and Transportation Research Institute

* Zürich: The city of public transport / on its way to the 2000 Watt-Society
MARKUS KNAUSS, coordinator of Zürich Office of VCS (Swiss Association for Transport and Environment) and Head of Greens in City Council of Zürich

* Amsterdam – city of pedestrian emperor and cyclist king
FJODOR MOLENAAR, Gemeenteraadslid GroenLinks Amsterdam / GroenLinks Member of City Council Amsterdam

* Brussels: heading to a sustainable Mobility
ARNAUD VERSTRAETE, adviseur van de Brusselse Staatssecretaris voor Mobiliteit / advisor of Brussels Secretary of State for Mobility

* Mind the gap
The need for a paradigm shift: on the road and in our heads
Closing Address by DIRK HOLEMANS, coördinator Oikos

More info? -> mail dirk.holemans@oikos.be

With the financial support of the European Parliament to the Green European Foundation. The European Parliament is not responsible for the content.

Dean’s Seminar: Mobile Futures

The College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Seminar Series presents

“Mobile Futures: New Approaches to Mobilities Research and Public Policy” by Dr. Mimi Sheller

Wednesday, April 21, 2010  3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Disque Hall, Room 109 (32nd & Chestnut)

Dr. Mimi Sheller, Professor of Sociology and Director of the new Center for Mobilities Research and Policy at Drexel, will discuss the future of urban mobility in relation to the dynamic interaction between cultural practices and innovations.

There have been significant shifts recently in relation to sustainable mobility systems, including the emergence of car-sharing and public bike-sharing schemes; improved bike-lanes and multi-user vehicle lanes; the design of pedestrian-friendly streets; the use of smaller electric vehicles; and so on. Yet none of these incremental changes has seriously challenged the existing system of automobility, which continues to be the dominant mode of transportation in the USA.

Dr. Sheller suggests that the transition to sustainable transportation systems will unfold not simply through technological breakthroughs, or even political imagination, but will also require cultural innovation and deeper social change. Car consumption is never simply about rational economic choices, but is as much about aesthetic, emotional and sensory responses to driving, as well as patterns of kinship, sociability, habitation and work. This talk aims to assess the openings and prospects for the emergence of new cultures of mobility, while also being realistic about the stabilities in the current mobility system.

This event is free and open to students, faculty and staff. Light refreshments will be served.

For more information, please contact Amy Weaver at amw55@drexel.edu.

EPA 2009 Smart Growth Awards

Some examples of excellence in transport planning are included in the US Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 Smart Growth Achievement Awards.

Tempe Transportation Center

Tempe, Arizona’s Tempe Transportation Center won the award for Smart Growth and Green Building:
The city of Tempe designed the Tempe Transportation Center as a multi-use green facility that is not only a transportation hub, but also a gathering spot for the community. A multimodal, mixed-use facility, the center integrates the downtown light-rail stop, the main city bus station, and the state’s first “bike station,” which offers secure on-site storage and repairs.

2009 Best Ideas in Transport

Treehugger’s Best and Worst of 2009: The Year in Bikes, Planes, Trains and Boats

Bikes-Planes-Trains 2009 Ideas

The Copenhagen Wheel from SENSEable City Lab, MIT

THE COPENHAGEN WHEEL
Smart, responsive and elegant, the Copenhagen Wheel is a new emblem for urban mobility. It transforms ordinary bicycles quickly into hybrid e-bikes that also function as mobile sensing units. The Copenhagen Wheel allows you to capture the energy dissipated while cycling and braking and save it for when you need a bit of a boost. It also maps pollution levels, traffic congestion, and road conditions in real-time.
SENSE and SUSTAINABILITY
Controlled through your smart phone, the Copenhagen Wheel becomes a natural extension of your everyday life. You can use your phone to unlock and lock your bike, change gears and select how much the motor assists you. As you cycle, the wheels sensing unit is also capturing your effort level and information about your surroundings, including road conditions, carbon monoxide, NOx, noise, ambient temperature and relative humidity. Access this data through your phone or the web and use it to plan healthier bike routes, to achieve your exercise goals or to meet up with friends on the go. You can also share your data with friends, or with your city – anonymously if you wish thereby contributing to a fine-grained database of environmental information from which we can all benefit.