EDF/ TTI/Cornell Virtual Workshop “Designing Healthier, More Sustainable Cities after COVID-19” – Wednesday, July 29th at 12 PM ET

Events

As the coronavirus pandemic disrupts our lives and threatens the health of people across the world, we are also seeing shifts in transportation patterns across the globe, resulting in an undesired but unavoidable natural experiment on a massive scale.

Following up on the workshop “Leveraging High-Resolution Transportation Data for Healthier Cities” held in November 2019, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) and Cornell University are collaborating again to organize a virtual workshop. The workshop will explore how researchers and policymakers can collaborate to better understand the dramatic shifts in transportation systems, air quality and health impacts that are occurring due to COVID-19, and how policymakers can use those insights to shape healthier, more sustainable and more equitable cities as we work to recover and rebuild from this crisis moving forward.

This virtual meeting will reunite participants from the November workshop and other key stakeholders to share projects, analyses, data and ideas related to how we might learn from the large-scale changes happening around us, and how cities, MPO’s, state agencies and others might be able to use these insights to shape long-term planning.

Agenda: 12 PM ET: Introduction
Impacts of COVID-19 on human behavior, transportation systems and air quality:

  • Fang Yan and Jeremy Avise, California Air Resources Board – “COVID-19 Impact: VMT, Emissions, and Air Quality in California”
  • Xiaodan Xu, Texas Transportation Institute – “Moving towards a more sustainable ‘new normal’ — a case study of El Paso, Texas”
  • Sarah Johnson, New York City Department of Health – “NYC on PAUSE: observations of COVID’s impact”

12:40 PM ET: Opportunities to shape healthier cities post-COVID

  • Susan Alvarez, City of Dallas – “Rebuilding Dallas in a Healthier, Greener Way”
  • Georg Bieker, International Council on Clean Transportation – “The View from Europe: COVID-19 Recovery & New Opportunities for Zero-emissions Vehicles”

1 PM ET: Facilitated Discussion with Panelists & Workshop Participants

1:30 PM ET: End

Please contact Maia Draper (mdraper@edf.org) for more information.