I Proposed.... and she said yes!

 My thesis topic guys... jeez what did you think I was gonna say? 

Today I presented my thesis proposal to my research methodology class, so of course all the fans are obliged to know what all this has been for as well. As most of you are probably aware, bike infrastructure is my jam when it comes to city planning, so my thesis will be focused on bike infrastructure as a means of facilitating mobility justice in the urban environment. 

I won't bore you too much with the details, but basically I will be analysing mobility policy and infrastructure in terms of how it increases access to opportunities for lower-income and physically disabled communities. 

Me Presenting my Proposal

I had originally thought I would like to create a methodology for bikifying American cities, but that ended up being too broad. Instead I will be coming up with what exactly about bike infrastructure increases the freedom of movement and access to opportunity. It is clear just from riding around in the Netherlands that there is this freedom, but there isn't much research on how it affects mobility justice-- that's where I will come in. 

I have secured an internship (at least its 95% secured) working on a research project based on Rotterdam coming up with innovative road design solutions to maximize efficiency in space scarce neighborhoods. With this project I will be able to use Rotterdam as my case study to observe how increased bike infrastructure strengthens mobility and access to opportunities. Rotterdam has its entire city center wiped out during WW2, and when it rebuilt, it was more car-centric than the older cities of the Netherlands, so it will make for an interesting case study as it is in the earlier stages of its bike transition. 

Anyways, so I was the first to present my topic to our professor (she helpfully prefaced my presentation with a warning that she was going to harshly critique all the proposals), it was a bit nerve wracking. but I lived. She approved of my topic, so all is well. This is also my excuse for my lack of blog posts, just working on the thing that I traveled across the world for (supposedly).