News

Request for Submissions: Transportation Equity Visual Display Competition
Deadline: February 28, 2018
$100 Cash Prize

On March 15, 2018 Poverty Solutions will host The Road Out of Poverty: Transportation and Economic Mobility Symposium. The event will feature transportation experts from across the region and world, speaking on the major transportation challenges of our time. It will bring together students, faculty, community leaders and policymakers to explore strategies, ideas and potential solutions.

U-M students are invited to submit visual representations of challenges at the intersection of transportation and poverty to be featured during the event. Students are encouraged to think creatively, visual depictions can be simple, complex, serious or whimsical. Students can integrate personal, professional, observed, or researched depictions. All forms of media are encouraged, including images, sculpture, video, existing documentation, graphs, charts, computer software, etc.

Up to 6 pieces will be chosen to be featured during the event. If your piece is chosen you will receive a one-time honorarium of $100 and you will be publicly recognized during the event.  

Submissions should focus on the following topic areas (we hope to accept one piece that represents each area):

• How legal structures impact mobility: expensive auto insurance policies and rates, licenses suspension for minor infractions, driver’s responsibility fees, low-fee tickets and citations spiraling into major debt.
• Getting to work and healthcare: where are the jobs and healthcare facilities compared to where people live, and how do our current transportation structures impact access?
• Routes to schools and how “schools of choice” exacerbate transportation challenges.
• Transportation technology and how to engineer systems to enhance equity.
• Access to regional public transit across county lines: how the lack of regional transit systems impact people.
• How to use research to measure access to transportation and inform policies that promote economic mobility.

If you transportation and/or economic mobility are new subject matter for you, feel free to read more on this brief primer.

Submit your proposal to povertysolutions@umich.edu by midnight, February 28th. Submissions can be a new piece, or a previously done work; if not digital, a photo submission of the piece will suffice.