With “inclusivity” being a buzzword due to the recent banning of DEI initiatives at the city, state, and federal levels, Veronica Davis’ book, “Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities,” counters that idea, suggesting inclusivity benefits everyone.
Davis, a self-described transportation nerd who previously worked as the director of Transportation and Drainage Operations for the city of Houston and co-founded Black Women Bike — a movement building community in biking among Black women — recently spoke at the Iowa City Public Library about her book and what inclusivity looks like in transportation planning.
“That’s what this is about for me: It is people want to move in different ways, and every time someone leaves their home, they should have options,” Davis said in her webinar with the Iowa City Public Library.
At its core, for Davis, inclusive transportation means people may choose to drive. But, if they choose to walk, there’s infrastructure to do so safely on sidewalks and curb cuts to allow easy access to sidewalks for those who need to move anything with wheels.
It also means having access to affordable and reliable public transportation, being able to bike safely and move around a city and having spaces to store bikes and e-scooters.
To achieve inclusive transportation, she said it starts with transportation planning. This means considering a diverse range of perspectives for transportation planning, such as those with disabilities, children, the unhoused, those who don’t speak English as a first language, and people who aren’t from the city.
“It’s about engaging people where they are,” Davis said. “If there’s a school near your project, go talk to the teacher, the principal, and ask if you can work with that school. It really is about being very intentional and going to work with them.”
Davis emphasized the importance of listening to the needs of the people the transportation projects are serving and meeting them where they are.
This is exactly what CAMBUS, the UI’s public transit system, is trying to do when planning its routes and services, Mia Burnelli, the CAMBUS manager, said.
Along with being a fare-free form of public transportation, CAMBUS tries to consider the needs of UI students, faculty, and staff, as well as those who aren’t members of the university community. Part of this involves providing services to different athletic events and conferences, as well as having routes that connect commuter parking lots to the university campus.
Burnelli also explained that CAMBUS also seeks feedback on ways it can improve its services and seriously considers this feedback.
“There were surveys that went out online, so we can make sure we were getting feedback from the people who use our services or people who don’t but maybe would like to if we made some changes,” Burnelli said. “We did that in partnership with Iowa City and Coralville so we could look at the whole community behind campus and see how our three systems work together to provide transit accessibility.”
Both CAMPUS and Iowa City Transit also utilize the Transit App to provide more inclusive transportation through the app’s accessibility features, like its multiple language settings, screen reading features, and larger text.
“Accessible transportation looks like the ability to travel throughout the community regardless of your age, your physical abilities, your income levels,” Director of transportation services for the City of Iowa City Darian Nagle-Gamm said. “Regardless of any aspect of the individual or background, where they come from, we want to make sure that transit is there for everybody in our community.”
Along with buses being equipped with lifts, ramps, and the ability to lower to the ground, Iowa Transit also has its paratransit program in partnership with Johnson County SEATS, a department that provides scheduled rides to the disabled and senior citizens, to provide services to those unable to use the regular bus service.
When it comes to inclusive transportation, Davis also spoke about the role of incentivizing public transportation in creating and sustaining inclusive transportation. This could mean subsidizing transportation time for employees and providing facilities for safely storing bikes and e-scooters or facilities for showering after biking to work.
“All of those things are also part of the incentive,” Davis said. “It’s not enough to just say, ‘You should bike, here’s a gold star.’ Thank you for the gold star; what does that do?”
Currently, Iowa City Transit is attempting to make biking and alternative modes of transportation to driving more accessible by installing bike lanes, bike paths, and dedicating spaces for bikes and e-scooters.
Iowa City Transit is also actively working to make transportation more inclusive to non-English speakers or those who don’t speak English as their first language. This includes having bus schedules translated into four languages — Arabic, Chinese, French, and Spanish — as well as the enunciator on buses that announce the stop a bus is arriving at.
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“That’s something that we pride ourselves on in the future is our system can be used by everybody, whether you’re new to town or whether you’ve been here your whole life,” Nagle-Gamm said.
While much has been done to increase access to transportation for Iowans, transportation is still a barrier for many Iowans living in rural areas, according to Davis. Rural communities face barriers specifically to reaching necessary supplies and groceries. Because of this, mail services are especially important to rural communities and should be considered in transportation planning.
“The U.S. Postal Service becomes a critical lifeline for many of our rural communities,” Davis said, “So, as we think about equity and we start making these policy decisions, if the U.S. Postal Service changes its functions, it’s really going to impact rural communities.”
As for the future of transportation in Iowa City, Nagle-Gamm and Iowa City Transit hope to continue encouraging, supporting, and expanding inclusive transportation.
“I think there’s going to be a continued focus on how we can better enable more sustainable modes of transportation and healthier modes of transportation, perhaps, such as biking, walking, all of these micro-mobility devices,” Nagle-Gamm said.
Davis and Brunelli both emphasized the importance of self-advocacy, whether it’s by responding to surveys about transportation or voting in elections for people who serve in transportation positions. This is one of the most important ways citizens can become involved in creating more inclusive transportation.
“You sent someone to go represent you in Capitol Hill, and you need to start with them,” Davis said. “You need to call their office, you need to write to their office, you need to email their office.”