Working Together Through COVID-19

We at StreetLight have been paying close attention to the COVID-19 pandemic, and our hearts go out to all affected. We are working hard to navigate this uncharted road, and we will do it together – as a team, and with our customers. 

Here are the key areas to note that affect our users and partners most:

We’re fortunate to be able to shift to a work-from-home model and keep your transportation analyses and special projects running, with StreetLight InSight® remaining fully accessible from any computer, anywhere, and our regular product releases and updates will continue as scheduled.

All of our roadshows and in-person events have been postponed until the public health situation stabilizes. Stay tuned as we move ongoing communications and training to virtual platforms including webinars, conference calls, and podcasts.

Our customer support, which has always been digital, will continue uninterrupted. However our team members are now working from home and we ask you to bear with us as we adjust to this new normal. 

Remember that qualified academic researchers can get free access to our tools and data by applying here. This includes researchers working on topics related to the COVID-19 pandemic. StreetLight is also working directly with outside partners to provide mobility metrics that may help us better understand the progression of the virus.

Please reach out if we can help in any other way: info@streetlightdata.com

The Climate Impact Index helps us think in this comparative way, particularly because most cities are never going to build a subway system like New York’s. Yet, there are still big things they can do that have huge climate impact, and those changes should be recognized and rewarded. With this list we wanted to remind everybody that finding the answer is not one-size-fits-all. 

Why Congestion Doesn’t Matter

There are so many lists out there focusing on congestion. Sure, congestion is annoying and wastes time, but today’s efficient cars don’t really cause more transportation emissions when they are moving slowly. Congestion in some sense is actually good, because horrible congestion may make people look at alternatives, like transit or bikes.

For our Climate Impact Index we agonized over what factors to weight and how high. In fact, we originally planned to have sliders instead of set weights, so that planners could adjust the weights themselves and see the results. But then we decided our list would have more power if it sparked real conversations around the real issues that affect transportation emissions.

Planting a stake in the ground like that was really hard for me. I’m an academic, and I like to debate pros and cons. I know there’s no perfect algorithm for measuring the impact of transportation emissions. What we can do, however, is push thinking about how data can measure concrete outcomes. 

But Maybe Horses Count

Judging from the conversations that have already come back from my colleagues, creating this list was totally worth it. We’ve got people thinking in creative ways. 

Some people have responded with strong opinions about what to measure, and why. And I like that they feel deeply about these issues. Maybe they’ll take this transportation emissions impact idea even further than we did.

We’ve gotten a lot of questions about the non-obvious cities on the “Top 10”  list like Des Moines and Madison. People ask me how a city like Des Moines can be “sustainable” when they don’t have a developed transit system. Well, it’s because they drive less. 

I don’t care how you drive less. I don’t care if it’s because your area has transit, or bike lanes, or a compact environment, or whatever. I’ll take it any way I can get it. 

People have really glommed on to the horse and buggy situation in Lancaster as a solution, which I think is fantastic. I’ve ended up in more than a few entertaining conversations about the impact of horse methane emissions (about which I know absolutely nothing). 

Let’s Find a Fast Fix

When it comes to climate change, we are running out of time. We need to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the most sprawling, most SUV and truck-filled places in the U.S., and we need to do it now.

We studied the factors that we judged important. But it’s infinite really, the data to analyze for understanding and managing transportation emissions. I encourage others to explore their own analyses. 

I know that influencing transportation is the most powerful thing I can do in my limited time on earth, because changes in transportation infrastructure deeply affect our carbon output for the next 30 years. That’s where StreetLight works hard to have an impact. After all, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.