Moving Towards Mobility Justice: Challenges and Considerations for Supporting Advocacy

DOI

In response to climate change concerns, urban mobility systems around the world are undergoing transitions to promote lower-emission vehicles, public transit, biking and walking. However, mobility is a complex issue given the numerous socio-political factors implicated. This necessitates approaching climate-related transformations around mobility, including the information, data and tools involved, from a social justice angle. Drawing on interviews with mobility justice grassroot organizations across Canada, we identify four challenges around how the design and use of existing mobility tools and technologies perpetuate mobility injustices and deepen the divide between urban planners and the public. We then discuss the influence of path-dependence as a systemic barrier that propagates mobility injustices. Further, we highlight tactics used by mobility justice advocates that research in HCI and CSCW can enable in order to address path-dependence, attend to the broader socio-political factors that influence transportation planning, support practices that legitimize marginalized perspectives and reframe mobility transformations from an efficiency problem to a deep commitment to place and people.