Lewis Center research recognized by APA LA
Every year, the APA Los Angeles Planning Awards recognize projects that enrich LA County’s built and natural environment. This year, the Lewis Center was involved in two projects that received awards from APA Los Angeles.
Advancing Diversity and Social Change
The Los Angeles Department of Transportation’s Changing Lanes study won the Advancing Social Equity and Change Award. The study prioritizes equity in transportation planning and design by focusing directly on lower-income and BIPOC women and communities. The project used a variety of methods to add empirical evidence to the growing body of research at the intersection of gender and mobility.
Lewis Center scholars Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Evelyn Blumenberg and Madeline Brozen provided research analysis and support for the study.
Communications Initiative
The short film “Biking While Black,” produced by community activist Yolanda Davis-Overstreet, won the Communications Initiative Award. Funded by SCAG’s Go Human mini-grant program, Davis-Overstreet sheds light on the experiences that Black lives encounter while bicycling.
The LA-based film features information from the Lewis Center’s brief, The Need to Prioritize Black Lives in LA’s Traffic Safety Efforts. The brief discussed how Los Angeles’ twin efforts of Vision Zero and an executive directive aimed at increasing racial equity in city departments presented an opportunity to improve racial equity in transportation safety. Traffic violence is one of the leading causes of unintentional injury death in the United States, and people of color are overrepresented victims of traffic violence. The document also featured an interview with Brozen, brief co-author.
