So What’s Ford Doing?

Roads for cars, not people? The article in Medium”The City of Tomorrow: Together, Let’s Take Back the Streets” suggests, we’re building roads for cars, Not people. We used to spend more time with people, now we spend more time in cars, in congestion, 16 hours vs a whopping 38. In this article, “The City of Tomorrow: Together Let’s Take Back the Street” the goal is explained nicely here: “One of the most powerful solutions is to bring our streets into the sharing era and the sharing economy. New mobility technologies, created with people at the center, can help us share our streets in new ways, more equitably, providing more access, for more people, to everything our cities have to offer.”

Also, “Before cars, city streets acted as bustling social hubs where neighbors and families could gather, vendors could sell their goods and children could play. Over time, parks and public spaces were sacrificed for parking lots and highways…”

“That is why Ford is taking a user-centered, systems-level design approach to mobility.” Ford wants to make sure it’s doing whatever it can to make things better. They’re doing it by collaborating with cities and various civic and technological forces. Creating Greenfield Labs, as described in Mediums related article, “It’s Time City Streets Matched our Societal Values,” Ford’s mobility research team,”Ford Smart Mobility,” is looking under every leaf to   answer questions about it. 

Partnering with Gehl…,who explore everything street related, Ford’s  mobility team, through Greenfield Labs, is examining what it means for equal access to all. Here’s more on the National Street Service Partners and and their mission.

For the full Medium article, click here.