We spent the bulk of the first day focused on strategies to conduct meaningful, inclusive community engagement. We also discussed the challenges in collaborating with state departments of transportation, how new mobility technologies influence the way people travel in our cities, and how to define and measure the success of safety demonstration projects.
In addition, the City of Durham led a frank discussion about how past transportation choices have created inequitable, car-oriented environments. Specifically, they acknowledged how the “Loop,” a one-way ring road built to move cars quickly around the city, “ripped the heart out of African American community in Durham” and continues to cut historically black neighborhoods off from the downtown area today, a problem that Durham hopes to solve through their equity-minded bike/walk implementation plan.