Climate Week, MLB, and EV Adventures

Cities and the built environment are where billions of people’s lives unfold. With urban living on the rise, these spaces—and the policies and systems around which they are organized— will become no less complex or dynamic, yet will more profoundly impact the global population. The Cityfi team, in partnership with our clients and colleagues, has been busy tackling an array of civic challenges and reflecting on the upsides of driving effective and benevolent change.

Whether following the development of autonomous vehicle expansion or moderating an executive session on cross-border freight electrification to kick off Climate Week, we have seen how discussions across sectors and within communities affirm our approach to centering solutions around both the planet and people, as individuals with unique needs. As cities increasingly host major sports and entertainment events, we were thrilled to collaborate with the Seattle Mariners on safe rideshare loading operations and wayfinding experiences for MLB All-Star Game attendees. Kitty-corner across the nation, Cityfi is also supporting the Miami-Dade County Department of Transportation and Public Works with a ten-year strategic plan for the organization that will position it to serve millions of residents and visitors through the transportation network.

On October 4 and 5 at Pier 36, Cityfi is proud to once again partner with and speak at Smart City Expo USA, hosted by Mayor Eric Adams, New York City Chief Technology Officer Matthew Fraser, and the City of New York. Join us for conversation on mobility systems, digital transformation, climate change, and everything in between, and use discount code CITYFI30 for 30% off registration.

As the autumn season officially arrives, Cityfi’s international expansion is underway in Utrecht, Netherlands! Whether connecting there, in the U.S., or virtually floats your boat, our team would love to explore the opportunities your organization or company has to shape and transform cities across the globe. Reach out on our website or at info@cityfi.co to start a conversation and discover the possibilities.

Climate Week: Rebalancing Conversations for Problem Solving

By Andrew Wishnia

As we move through climate week with so many meaningful conversations and a renewed sense of urgency, we must continue to problem solve the systems upon which our lives and livelihoods are built with perhaps slightly more balanced conversation.

For example, electric vehicles (EVs) are necessary–absolutely necessary–for a cleaner transportation system, but they’re not sufficient. Despite spreadsheets telling decision makers that operational emissions are the same (zero) for e-cargo bike delivery compared to larger electric cars, larger cars have consequences that might not be captured. Larger cars can produce more wear and tear on our roadways. Larger cars can be a rationale for State departments of transportation to widen lanes, and wider lanes can increase speeds, which have community impacts, including serious injuries and fatalities. Larger cars tend to have higher embodied carbon. Larger cars can produce much more PM2.5 pollution from road dust and tire emissions. And larger electric cars can produce larger energy strains on the grid, which can have significant equity implications. Those facts notwithstanding, larger cars are choices today and will be into the future with multiple levers to account for the consequences above.

Proximity to each other isn’t something we should try to ration either. Ensuring proximity is a boon to the young, the elderly, and the disabled who can't get behind a wheel safely or folks who can't afford the expense. More broadly, communities of all ages, incomes, and abilities should be able to choose how they spend their time. As a nation that cherishes freedom, proximity to one another and the things we need to live and thrive increases choice. Choice can’t be an argument that is carried as a cudgel from just one side.

Disagreement is healthy and vital, but maybe we need to disagree better, as I heard it stated recently. Polemicists and storytellers are needed here, and everywhere else in between, to rebalance problem statements and problem solve the climate crises. We can, and we will, as New York City Climate Week tells us, if we continue to move forward together.

Hearing Voices: Perspectives on Mobility and Inclusion

By Story Bellows

Last month, more than 200 people signed up to speak at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) hearing regarding the expansion of autonomous vehicles in San Francisco. Person after person stood up and told stories of moving (or not moving) around a city hailed as having one of the better transit systems in our country. It wasn’t pretty. Whether you support driverless cars or not, the barrage of stories of challenging, humiliating, and downright impossible mobility made it clear that the system isn’t working, and we’re not listening enough to those for whom it’s not working.

Over the past month, I’ve continued to think back to what we learned and heard–as engaged individuals and as advisors to companies and cities in this space–and I keep coming back to the stories told and the process that brought so many together. All too often in organizing constituent groups, we assume voting blocks that simply don’t exist and we fail to meaningfully connect aligned entities. As we heard during the CPUC hearing and testimony, the “disability community” is so clearly not one homogenous community. The fractured front that separated the blind and physically disabled communities provided some interesting insights:

The bad: Development of sustainable and equitable systems requires individualized solutions. Advancing equitable mobility and transportation solutions likely requires recognition that all solutions may not need to work for every group all of the time. This may be as simple as it being inconvenient for me to bike a toddler to school in the rain or as deep as the recognition that a great network of bike lanes may never have a direct positive impact on a blind individual or a broader community who cannot bike. As a neighbor who works in disability advocacy said, “we need to view this as the rising tide that lifts all boats.” What works for the blind or neurodiverse community need not meet everybody’s mobility needs. But a community needs to advocate for solutions that work for those who need them, not for everyone.

The good: We saw “the disability community” as not some general community but as the parts that make up this greater whole–individuals with compelling stories whose perspective on our mobility systems cannot be ignored. The diverse needs, the champions, the vast differences, they reflect our communities and feelings more broadly, and the set of solutions that works for the disability community, and all of the sub-communities within it, probably works pretty well for a city at large. Community engagement needs to not search for the reactions of the disability community at large or any community at large.

What we still need to find out: How do driverless cars at scale actually work for the communities who showed up to advocate for them? How do we get feedback loops to understand whether this new addition to a mobility system actually does make life better or worse for particular groups of people? What would happen if we connected the blind community with the many bicycle advocates who also stood up in support of driverless vehicles? How might those groups intentionally align future efforts in support of a more safe and equitable system of mobility? Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, how do we get this level of sustained engagement to support revisiting and restructuring the greater systems that so clearly don’t work for so many people?

MLB All-Star Week: A Home Run for Transportation with the Seattle Mariners

By Monique Ho

In July 2023, T-Mobile Park hosted the MLB All-Star Game. To welcome fans from across the country, the Seattle Mariners planned a series of mobility, public realm, and landscaping enhancements to elevate the fans’ transportation experience and to create new ways to engage with the South of Downtown (SoDo) neighborhood for the All-Star Game and future events at T-Mobile Park. T-Mobile Park anticipated up to 40,000 attendees for several All-Star events, generating concerns around pedestrian safety and congestion; the stadium is located in a constrained site surrounded by freeways, active BNSF rail lines, and aging or nonexistent bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and has had a history of unorganized rideshare pickup and drop-off activity.

In preparation for All-Star Week and more generally to optimize rideshare traffic flows in the SoDo area for all special events, T-Mobile Park designed and built a designated rideshare loading area and overflow location. To operationalize both sites, T-Mobile Park engaged Cityfi to develop a strategy to guide rideshare operations with an emphasis on mitigating potential conflicts with pedestrians, bicyclists, buses, and other motor vehicle traffic on game days. Cityfi convened a diverse group of stakeholders, including various departments within the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), rideshare companies, local business improvement districts, and nearby property owners to develop a comprehensive operations plan detailing potential conflict areas, site access points, staging areas, and proposed rideshare and pedestrian routing. Cityfi also coordinated with SDOT to ensure district wayfinding for both rideshare loading areas were accurate and and with rideshare companies to design gameday geofences and accompanying in-app messaging to direct attendees to designated loading areas.

Prior to All-Star Week, Cityfi developed an evaluation strategy that enabled T-Mobile Park, SDOT, and other project partners to understand how designated loading areas functioned for rideshare drivers, passengers, and enforcement staff during game day operations. This involved real-world testing of key assumptions from the operations plan, including the duration of geofence activation, efficacy of wayfinding signage and in-app messaging, and demand distribution across the two loading areas. Some key outcomes from executing the proposed operations plan include increased awareness amongst stadium attendees and rideshare drivers of the designated loading areas, greater orderliness of rideshare pickup activity on game days, and positive attendee experience.

Our next steps involve supporting T-Mobile Park in formalizing the operations plan and identifying opportunities to integrate additional mobility features to both loading area sites. If you’re interested in learning more about the project or about our process, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

Strategizing for Success in Miami-Dade County

By Karina Ricks, Karla Peralta, and Carolina de Urquijo

Strategic plans often get confused with long range vision plans, project-laced master plans or near-term action agendas. But a true strategic plan underpins and supports vision, master plans, and action agendas. Strategic plans are often inwardly looking, deconstructing policies and processes that slow or hinder implementation, identifying opportunities for workflow efficiency, and tracking data meaningful to progress (or pivots).

The Miami-Dade County Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTPW) is undertaking such a plan to focus its energies in providing the structural platform necessary to execute its priority projects and initiatives. The Strategic Plan will set up DTPW for success by providing a clear roadmap for the Department’s transformation to achieve its mission and vision.

As part of the development process, Cityfi conducted three workshops with the final one taking place last week. During these workshops, we identified DTPW’s north stars that will steer the department’s strategy. Such north stars are shared and inspiring guiding principles that can serve as a compass to guide the project’s strategic direction and actions. Additionally, we pinpointed key strategic targets to focus on, developed in collaboration with DTPW stakeholders’ implementation gap maps. These gap maps are tools that delineate clear, actionable steps to facilitate the implementation of key strategies. Furthermore, through collaborative discussions with various stakeholders, we identified potential partners and highlighted any missing components that are essential for the successful execution of DTPW’s Strategic Plan. Finally, one of the key outcomes of these engagements is to create cohesion and a shared language amongst participants, fostering buy-in through a sense of connection not only to the strategic plan but also to one another.

Our next steps involve finalizing the Strategic Plan and equipping DTPW staff with the necessary tools for effective implementation. If you’re interested in delving deeper into the project or learning more about our process, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

Congress and the EU Tackle AI Regulations

By Brandon Pollak

When emerging technologies go mainstream, there is often a wide gap between tech industry leaders and policymakers on regulations. Policymakers move slowly on legislation, and tech leaders don’t want innovation stifled. When I recently interviewed SeedAI Founder Austin Carson, we discussed the growing consensus that smart regulations need to be adapted given the vast growth of generative artificial intelligence (AI).

Tech leaders, academics, civil liberties groups, labor unions, and U.S. Senators met on Capitol Hill last week for a meeting organized by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to chart a path forward on regulation. There is consensus that regulation must be developed but to varying degrees. At the meeting, Elon Musk went as far as to call for a federal department for AI regulation while Mark Zuckerberg stressed the importance of finding the right balance that minimizes the risks but does not hinder the potential upside of generative AI tools. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has taken a proactive approach to engaging with policymakers with multiple trips to Capitol Hill and the White House, while calling for global cooperation between governments on regulation.

Meanwhile this week on Capitol Hill, roughly thirty members of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) met with Members of Congress to discuss their concerns AI is already having on songwriters. Issues of job losses, disinformation, copyright infringement, and many others are on the minds of policymakers in the U.S. and internationally. New legislation is expected to be introduced by Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) that would require companies to analyze the impact of AI systems and then self-report any safety that could be deemed risky.

Globally, the EU is in the midst of trying to turn draft rules first introduced two years ago into a global standard on AI. EU lawmaker Brando Benifei, who is leading negotiations on AI rules has urged EU countries to compromise in key areas in order to reach an agreement by the end of the year. Lawmakers want a ban on AI use in biometric surveillance, but EU countries led by France want exceptions for national security purposes. For more in-depth background on AI policy, check out my interview with Austin Carson.

New on the Blog: The Paradox of Progress

By Sarah Saltz

Like many of you newsletter readers, I joined this industry with an enthusiasm for making a positive impact and a passion to make our cities better for people and the planet. Over the past few months, a series of horrifying car crashes a few blocks from my house has me reflecting on the trade-offs between making speedy forward progress and making meaningful, lasting impact. We at Cityfi describe ourselves as "urban changemakers," but what does that actually mean day-to-day as we work to bridge the gap between the past, the messy present, and the ideal future?

The passion that led us to this field and our enthusiasm as advocates, educators, convenors, and innovators may inadvertently alienate those who we most need to bring in. Currently, there seems to be a disconnect between what we know to be true about the negative impacts of single occupancy vehicles and the reality of "motonormativity," or the failure to respond rationally when cars are involved. In our blog, I contemplate the urgent need to make radical progress without entangling ourselves in identity politics or alienating those we need most. Read the blog post here. Agree? Disagree? Reach out, and let us know what you think.

EV Car Rental Experiment

By Ryan Parzick

I recently took my daughter on her first set of college visits to five schools in Southern California. I decided to use this opportunity to conduct a little experiment on something I have been curious about for a while now: what is it like to rent an EV and use it for long-distance driving? Not owning an EV myself, I knew the experience would be different than the traditional “grab a car at the airport and off we go” model I was accustomed to. Being the person I am, RESEARCH would be my key to making this a successful endeavor, so that is what I did. Lots and lots of research and planning.

After putting together an ambitious, but efficient, schedule of college tours and information sessions scattered throughout 525 miles of driving, I was ready to figure out how we would actually make this happen with a vehicle that did not have an abundance of fueling options like a traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) car would with gas stations littering the American landscape wherever one travels. Find out what my plan was and how everything turned out in my blog post. Spoiler alert: I will be doing it again.