Taubman College Jonathan Levine, professor of urban and regional planning, and Associate Professor Joe Grengs, who is chair of the urban and regional planning program, are co-authors of a new book titled, From Mobility to Accessibility: Transforming Urban Transportation and Land-Use Planning (Cornell University Press, 2019). The third co-author is Louis Merlin, professor of urban and regional planning at Florida Atlantic University.
In From Mobility to Accessibility, Levine, Grengs, and Merlin argue for an “accessibility shift,” whereby transportation planning and the transportation dimensions of land-use planning would be based on people’s ability to reach destinations, rather than on their ability to travel fast. By redefining success in transportation, the book provides city planners, decision-makers, and scholars a path to reforming the practice of transportation and land-use planning in modern cities and metropolitan areas.
Levine’s research centers around policy reform in transportation and land use, focusing on the transformation of the transportation and land-use planning paradigm from mobility to an accessibility basis. Levine also is interested in the design of institutions for emerging transportation systems, such as self-driving electric vehicles, to serve metropolitan-accessibility goals. Grengs studies social equity in land use and planning, with a focus on prioritizing transportation investments that improve access to essential destinations for poor people and other disadvantaged travelers.
Pictured (left to right) are Levine, Grengs, and Merlin.
