Dr. Daniel Piatkowski (Savannah State University)

Dr. Daniel Piatkowski, Assistant Professor in Urban Planning at the Savannah State University, will be speaking on "Carrots vs. Sticks: Strategies for increasing walking and cycling in the US."

ABSTRACT: The standard approach to increasing walking and bicycling mode share in the United States is through encouragement or promotion. But the impact of encouraging and promoting more sustainable transportation choices may be inherently limited. This may explain why, despite concerted efforts to promote active modes of transportation in some US cities, bicycle and pedestrian mode shares remain low. This seminar examines the challenges of significantly increasing bicycle and pedestrian mode shares as an interaction between individual attitudes/perceptions and the environment. I conceptualize existing approaches aimed at encouraging active travel mode share as “carrots” and those that discourage driving as “sticks.”  It may be that carrots in isolation are only modestly effective at impacting mode shift, but the alternative, sticks, carry significant equity concerns and implementation challenges. Prior to considering strategies that discourage driving – the primary alternative to active modes in the US – an evidence base is needed. Existing evidence for comprehensive “carrot and stick” strategies to influence city-scale travel behavior comes mainly from European case studies and is difficult to generalize to the US. This work fills this gap by drawing on data from four US cities. I apply a mixed methods approach to two research questions that are frequently only examined in isolation: (1) are carrots, sticks, or a combination of the two most effective at influencing travel behavior; and (2) what is the difference in terms of ease of implementation between carrots and sticks? 

BIO:

Dr. Piatkowski is an interdisciplinary urban planning scholar interested in sustainable, healthy, and active transportation. He received his PhD in Design and Planning from the University of Colorado Denver as a National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education Research Trainee (NSF-IGERT) and a member of the Active Communities Transportation Research Group (actresearchgroup.org). He holds a Master's degree in Urban and Environmental Planning, and a Bachelor's degree in English, both from Arizona State University. Prior to joining the faculty at Savannah State University, he was a Research Associate at the Center for Sustainable Infrastructure Systems at the University of Colorado Denver. Current research projects include: multi-modal conflicts, street design, and travel behavior; historic neighborhoods, preservation, and active transport; social media tools in for sustainable transportation planning.

To learn more about Dr. Piatkowski, visit his webpage.