Code Shift: Data, Governance, and Equity in Los Angeles’s Shared Mobility Pilots By Emmett Z. McKinney BA in Public Policy and French Vanderbilt University Nashville, Tennessee (2016) Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in City Planning at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY May 2020 © 2020 Emmett McKinney. All Rights Reserved The author here by grants to MIT the permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of the thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created. Author___________________________________________________________________ Department of Urban Studies and Planning May 20, 2020 Certified by _______________________________________________________________ Lawrence E. Susskind Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning Thesis Supervisor Accepted by_______________________________________________________________ Ceasar McDowell Professor of the Practice Chair, MCP Committee Department of Urban Studies and Planning Code Shift: Data, Governance, and Equity in Los Angeles’s Shared Mobility Pilots By Emmett Z. McKinney Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning on May 20, 2020, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master in City Planning ABSTRACT Transportation planners suggest that smart mobility systems – cars, bikes, scooters and other vehicles connected to the internet – can advance social equity. While smart mobility systems can help address transport poverty, new technologies may also reproduce power asymmetries between communities, government, and mobility service providers. Through case studies of several of Los Angeles’s shared mobility pilots, I argue that mobility equity demands the fair distribution of power (i.e. the right to co-design new systems and a role in adapting their operations), not only of resources. Designing mobility systems that are both equitable and smart, therefore, requires transportation planners to better integrate the lived experiences of residents, especially the poor and the disadvantaged, into data-driven planning efforts. Open data frameworks such as MDS (i.e. Mobility Data Specification) enhance the possibility for co-design and increased mobility equity – while also presenting new obstacles to overcome. To advance mobility equity, transportation planners should begin with inclusive data governance. Thesis Supervisor: Lawrence E. Susskind Title: Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning Reader: Karilyn Crockett Title: Lecturer of Public Policy and Urban Planning Reader: Eric Huntley Title: Lecturer of Urban Science and Planning 2 Acknowledgements I arrived at the end of this journey with help from many along the way. I’d like to share my deepest gratitude with: My committee – for their thoughtful feedback, patience as I tried out new ideas, and support until the very end. Community activists – who, after decades of working for justice, took the time to help me grow. People for Mobility Justice, Alliance for Community Transit-LA, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, and the Labor/Community Strategy Center were particularly instrumental. Transportation planners – who sharpened my ideas and lent a helping hand to set up interviews. Jascha-Franklin Hodge, Andrew Salzberg, Joshua Schank, and Natalia Barbour deserve particular thanks. CoLab – for inspiring me to think deeply about equity, affirmed me as I took intellectual risks, and offering me a home within DUSP. My fellow DUSPers – who awe me with their compassion, intellect, and creativity. I am grateful to Hannah Hunt Moeller, Dylan Halpern, Ian Ollis, Dan Powers, Max Arnell, Alex Acuña, Ayushi Roy and many others who reassured me when my confidence wavered, and shared many laughs along the way. Finally, none of this would be possible without Zach and Zoë, who taught me to live with empathy and a sense of adventure – or Mom and Dad, who have always said ‘yes’ to my curiosities. I love you all so much. 3 Author’s Note This research started, as many projects do, on Twitter. While transit experts increasingly signaled commitments to equity, other commentators – and women of color in particular – questioned the veracity of these claims. I set out to understand where the conflicts emerged, and what role new technologies might play in addressing them. Among my favorite discoveries was the term ‘Fakequity,’ coined to describe “when you think you’re doing equity work but you’re really passing off a project as equity and perpetuating the same power dynamics with no community accountability.” Fakequity practices range from ‘Potlucks and Fake Community Engagement’ and ‘Awareness Raising But Doing All the Talking’, to, at the high end of the spectrum, being ‘Equity Brave’ or an ‘Equity Champion.’ The advanced user can play ‘Entitlement Bingo,’ which helps them listen for phrases that hint their colleagues may only be giving lip service to ‘equity’(Okuna et al., 2015). This portmanteau is a tongue-in-cheek framing of a larger and more serious debate in urban planning as to how ‘equity’ should be defined, measured, and implemented. I used this thesis as an opportunity to delve into this debate, and consider my own role. I first attempted this computationally, trying out Gini coefficients and measurements of spatial accessibility to assess equity. I soon learned that equity is complex – not easily reducible to an algorithm. It depends much on the history of a place, and one’s personal experiences, which invariably shape the statistical models we use to describe the world. I am a male, white, cis straight man who has the privilege to study at MIT. I cannot speak to what ‘transportation equity’ means from personal experience of having been marginalized. What I can do is use my power as a graduate student to amplify the voices of people doing the work on the front lines. I can listen, and make room for these experiences in spaces where enthusiasm for cutting edge technology often overpowers personal reflection on the problems we are trying to solve. My hope is for this thesis to leave readers feeling challenged; that it will push transportation planners to consider deeply what they mean by the term ‘equity,’ and reflect on how their practice and methods reflect their values and experiences. I hope that this will fortify the ability of community groups to intervene in tech spaces, and amplify marginalized voices in mainstream planning discussions. Finally, as urban planning schools (including my own) develop new curricula in urban science and analytics, I hope this research prompts scholars to place cutting edge technology in conversation with urban history. In engaging these topics, I joined a conversation that started long before I wrote the first word, and which will continue long after the final footnote. Community activists, planning professionals, and various scholars generously offered their perspectives for this project. I have done my best to organize their views here, in a way that is engaging and clear. In so doing I imposed my own lens, and could not include all that I learned. This is a starting point – and I would encourage you to continue straight to the source. Communities can recount their own experiences far better than I ever could. 4 Table of Contents ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... 3 Author’s Note ................................................................................................................................. 4 Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................. 6 Motivation ............................................................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 2: Code Shift .................................................................................................................. 18 Case Study: The Mobility Data Specification .................................................................................... 25 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 39 Chapter 3: History of Transportation (in)equity in Los Angeles ............................................... 41 From Rail to Roads ............................................................................................................................... 42 Los AnGeles Today ................................................................................................................................ 45 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................ 66 Chapter 4: Shared Mobility as Civic Technology -- A Case Study of LA’s Shared Mobility Pilots ............................................................................................................................................. 68 Potential Benefits to Low-Income Riders from Shared Mobility ..................................................... 70 Case Study: BlueLA, Dockless Mobility Pilot, and Metro Bike Share. ..........................................