Introducing The Go Hub: A Community Mobility Center

Equiticity is developing The Go Hub: A Community Mobility Center in the North Lawndale neighborhood on the Westside of Chicago.

The Go Hub is a physical and digital space where neighborhood residents create community around mobility justice and environmental justice. Explicitly designed to increase mobility in predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods experiencing severe transportation inequities, The Go Hub will be reflective of both the transportation needs and cultural identity of the North Lawndale neighborhood.

Equiticity will launch our first iteration of The Go Hub in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood. This project will implement one mobility hub at an available storefront a quarter block from the Pulaski Pink Line train station. The mobility hub will include a mobility loaner fleet of e-bikes, e-scooters, and shared eclectic vehicles, as well as transportation information, travel training, and incentives, based on needs and preferences of both members of The Go Hub and North Lawndale residents. Members will have full, shared use of The Go Hub’s mobility fleet and enjoy participation in the advocacy coalition, training programs, and all the programs and services offered through The Go Hub.

The Go Hub “software” includes community mobility rituals, such as weekly community bicycle rides, neighborhood walking tours, group scooter rolls, public transit excursions, and open streets events. The software also includes safe, protected space to address trauma experienced during the act of mobility and opportunities for active healing practices. In addition, the software is inclusive of the community power building necessary to develop a neighborhood-based, mobility justice advocacy coalition.

The Go Hub “hardware” includes the physical infrastructure, technology, and shared mobility devices necessary to grow mobility at a hyperlocal, neighborhood level. The Go Hub’s hardware provides physical access for people to get to and from home and other destinations to the Pulaski Pink Line station a quarter block South and to bus stops next to public transit infrastructure. Hardware includes shared electric vehicles and charging stations. Hardware also includes various micro mobility devices, such as e-bikes and e-scooters.

The Go Hub’s innovative integration of software and hardware requires a physical space to serve as a mobility community center for our members and neighborhood residents. 

The Go Hub’s integration model will utilize “space-creating” streetscape interventions, designed to improve traffic safety and increase social cohesion, while also creating culturally and contextually relevant street designs.

To learn more about The Go Hub, please contact Olatunji Oboi Reed, President & CEO, Equiticity, at Oboi@equiticity.org.