WheelChange is an information platform / media project that, if fully executed and utilized, will change the way we move. It will be a catalyst in redesigning the world with a new mobility paradigm and make our cities and towns more healthy and happy.
The information and communication technology (ICT) revolution has already profoundly changed our world. But ICT has yet to be applied to transportation in any meaningful way. Americans may download a great new app for their smart phone but still drive a 3,500 lb. vehicle just a mile to get a coffee, and use that vehicle for all of their trips. While carsharing has become available in some cities, few Americans understand how they can switch to a new type of "network transportation". In order to advance in this area, behavior will need to change and we have to make certain alterations to our built environment. This requires buy-in from the decision makers. Wheelchange aims to go "upstream" of these decision makers, right to the public to help people understand what is now possible in redefining mobility and to engage them into designing and building this future.
Wheelchange is an advocate for new smart multi-modal transportation systems. By enabling a diverse set of existing and new transportation options to work together to allow an individual access to their city, one could think of this smart multimobility future as being a set of stepping stones across a river, while the conventional car ownership model is more like the large and heavy bridge.
Here is a short film on what this future may look like and how it will enable million of Americans to improve their own neighborhoods and quality of their lives:
A short (draft) film about how a network of personal vehicles linked with community mobility hubs (and transit) can transform our communities into healthier and happier places to live
The Vision of Wheelchange Media
How do we inspire and engage designers, planners, and citizens to make "Wheelchange" in the mobility patterns we design, build, and use? Through a combination of Inspiration supported by Access to Technical Know-How.
Inspiration
On Wheelchange podcasts (and eventually TV / film), designers and visionaries will talk about the potential of paradigm shifts in transportation and city design that inspire. They'll work with a person or family and walk through the process of providing a mobility make-over. Transformation stories inspire and also show others that change is possible. Maybe some ideas are wild and futuristic, maybe some ideas are just clever and save the average Joe money. The common theme is that the transformations inspire and that at the very least, the first steps are possible. Some folks are turned on by technology specs, some love the designerly visions that come out of Syd Mead-esque renderings and models, yet the common theme is that all the discussions talk about lifestyle aspirations. This is how the show connects with what motivates people to dream about different ways of living and how mobility issues that people didn't even realize they were accommodating are examined and solved (such as health issues of obesity and stress, or the financial strain that transportation places upon the family budget).
Access To Technical Know-How
The real goal is not to create technology cravings and sell more gadgets, but to provide self-help to the fossil-fueled addicted. At the same time that Wheelchange sparks the desire to revamp mobility preconceptions, it provides technical support and tools for implementation. Wheelchange targets cultural and municipal leaders and creates both a forum for discussions and a professional network. Participants are motivated to engage in these forums, because Wheelchange connects them to experts with the technical know-how, folks who can provide guidance and answers to the question "How do we make this real with what we have today?"
Wheelchange is a functional blending of inspirational long-range visioning with technical expertise to guide the decisions of today's leaders, leaders who face increasing challenges with infrastructure, population growth, and resource uncertainty. Wheelchange taps into the collective horsepower of designers, change agents, engineers. planners, community leaders, and grassroots activists. Wheelchange engages everyone that wants to make a difference and shares their stories.
Meet some of the leading thinkers in transportation that have advised Dan Sturges:
Trained as an automotive designer, Dan began to broaden his focus from vehicle design to that of designing new urban mobility systems in 1997 when he joined the Institute of Trans- portation Studies at UC-Davis. There he initiated his work on developing smart multi-modal mobility systems and launched North America's first New Mobility program.
Earlier in his career, Dan had focused on the gap in personal vehicle options between limited- utility motorscooters and more capable automobiles. This led Dan to design a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV). Unable to find a manufacturer to build his design, he formed the world's first NEV company and brought the vehicle to market in 1995. Working with the United States' National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Dan and his partners were successful in establishing the only new category of motor vehicle to be approved for US streets since NHTSA was founded in 1971. Dan's NEV, designed in 1993, has been a lasting design and remains in production today. The company is now owned by Polaris Industries and marketed under the Global Electric Motorcars (GEM) brand. GEM currently enjoys 90% market share, has sold 50,000 units, leading to over 20 million gallons of gasoline saved.
More recently, Dan working as an independent consultant, has supported many different types of clients in developing custom mobility solutions as well as working to create new mobility technologies (and services). For example, Dan has created custom sustainable mobility solutions for several of the largest new residential communities in California, designed transportation systems concepts for an extremely large recreational park in Florida, supported Southern California's Association of Governments (SCAG) work in multimobility, and has worked for the most innovative new smart ride company; Avego.
Dan has long focused on whole-systems solutions to our urban mobility challenges. This led him to work for diverse employers such as General Motors (Design Staff ), General Motors' Advanced Concepts Center, frogdesign (where Dan gained exposure to a larger world of industrial and emergent interactive design), CALSTART (which connected Dan to leading transit innovators in the US), among others.
Wheelchange is developing on several tracks. One approach is to work towards a larger National Tour / TV project, and the second is to focus on one emerging megargion (in this case the (Colorado) Front Range) to showcase the regional focus aspects of the larger program.
Here is an excerpt from the Wheelchange TV project:
So how do we engage the public? How do we allow them access to the architects, designers, planners, policy makers and the chains of production that can make this real? Television is too top down. In and out of the mind in an hour. The web is a little like waving your hands and shouting in a crowd. You'll likely attract only those who already know you. Our idea is to engage them where they live. After all, this is about how we are going to live.
WheelChange will be a bit like a traveling circus of sorts that will come to town to plant the seeds of possibilities, enticing an audience with the thrill of the new. Like chautauquas of days past it will use presentations and entertainment to create a ferment of ideas, challenges and dialogue. Even after leaving town WheelChange will continue involve interested organizations, individuals and the general public in a web game/competition for prizes and, more importantly, for the attentions of the designers, planners, policy makers, and artists who can help make ideas real. And, finally, WheelChange will morph into a series of television shows about each of the cities combining all of the above. The payoff of each episode is a glimpse of a great idea for our future, born from regular folk, enhanced and honed by experts in the field and rendered by special effects wizards.
Result: A bottom-up lively energy around a subject that few knew even existed or bothered to think about.
Wheelchange Front Range (FR)
Unlike New York City (which is very dense and is considered a "thick city"), the Front Range region is lower-density, more suburban, and can be thought of as a "thin city". Here new multimobility solutions that allow consumers to switch to a more affordable and sustainable mobility is more challenging to get started. Working with one town or small city is not an adequate "canvas" for this work with many car trips coming from outside of any given city, while working with an entire region has a different set of challenges. Wheelchange FR has launched an exploratory meeting in Boulder County about how to advance multimobility in this area of the country.
The ambition is to both make a film about the larger opportunity to reform mobility in a substantial way in the Front Range that engages the public in a meaningful new way, and to launch several key pilot projects that offer consumer / citizens terrific new integrated mobility solutions.
Here is a picture of the Colorado Front Range region:
