Tarlise Townsend
PhD & MPP ’21, Department of Health Management and Policy (PhD) & Ford School of Public Policy
Many communities in Detroit lack access to affordable, safe, and reliable transportation. Yet without adequate transportation, an individual is less able to arrive at work or school on time, shop at grocery stores that supply healthy foods, use social services and programs, access health care, and maintain social connections. The emergence of ridesharing and car-sharing services like Uber and ZipCar has created alternative modes of transportation for some groups. However, preliminary research by our team of Dow Fellows and public health PhD students has found that these new models (together termed “shared-use mobility”) may actually reinforce the challenges faced by already disadvantaged communities. Building on this initial, more informal investigation, we hope to conduct rigorous qualitative research examining three unstudied but important questions regarding mobility among underserved communities in Detroit. (1) In what ways is shared-use mobility creating opportunities and/or new barriers to mobility? (2) How do these opportunities and barriers vary by subgroup (age, racial and ethnic identity, gender, and so on)? (3) What policies or programs have potential to overcome any identified barriers? Our project is built on the premise that shared-use mobility could disparately impact more versus less advantaged communities, and that—because of their rapid emergence in recent years—these issues have received insufficient attention from researchers, government, and industry. We aim to help fill this gap.
Library Mentors: Darlene Nichols and Judy Smith