MOBILITY
At SmithGroup we approach mobility projects through the lens of people and planet, and in close collaboration with our clients. Our goal is to create sustainable transportation and infrastructure systems that create place and provide healthy, safe, and affordable mobility choices for all people. We focus on integrated solutions for moving people, rather than solving for individual modes of travel. We strive to balance the needs of all users – be they motorists or pedestrians, bicyclists or transit users – while providing the flexibility to adapt to future demands and changes.
Grounded in complete green streets, active transportation, and placemaking, SmithGroup integrates expertise across scales: from community-wide network planning to corridor design, roadway engineering, and policy creation. We leverage our knowledge of shared-use and micro mobility strategies, smart infrastructure, and emerging vehicle technologies to build connectivity that works. We build partnerships between clients and mobility providers, finding common ground and innovative solutions.
PROJECTS
Joe Louis Greenway
Like the man it honors, the Joe Louis Greenway has a bold purpose: to reunify and reenergize Detroit’s diverse communities, many of which have been separated by freeways. The 27.5-mile recreational pathway will connect Detroiters to history, nature, art and, most importantly, to one another—promoting a new era of health, wellness, healing, empowerment and unity across the city.
OUR EXPERTS
SmithGroup’s mobility practitioners are a diverse mix of engineers, landscape architects, urban designers and planners committed to transforming how society meets mobility needs. Fundamental to our process is listening, to understand a community’s values, aspirations, and opportunities through engagement, research, defensible analysis, and value-based decision making. By sharing what we learn, along with best practice expertise and past experience, we work to build local knowledge and capacity.
Janet Attarian
Principal, Senior Mobility Strategist
A national mobility expert with over 25 years of experience, Attarian has served as a leader for the planning and transportation departments in the cities of Chicago and Detroit.
Oliver Kiley
Principal, Landscape Architect
Oliver’s innovative approach to mobility planning and design fuses community-based input and data analysis with a focus on equitable access, ecological enhancement, placemaking, and civic reinvestment and reconnection.
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Adapting Streets and the Public Realm to Build Resilient Communities
For many decades, the primary motivation of streetscape design was to make traditional main streets look fresh while enhancing their historic character and competitiveness relative to suburban shopping areas. Over time, best practices and design trends coalesced around the placemaking concept, alongside broader recognition that creating comfortable, attractive places did in fact add to economic vitality, community identity and quality of life.
AWARDS & NEWS
Joe Louis Greenway Receives National APA Award
The Joe Louis Greenway (JLG) Framework Plan for the City of Detroit has received the American Planning Association’s 2022 Advancing Diversity and Social Change in Honor of Paul Davidoff Award. Established over 50 years ago, the APA’s National Planning Awards are selected annually by a jury of planning practitioners. Only one award recipient is selected in each of the four award categories.
Contact Us
Janet Attarian
Senior Principal, Senior Mobility Strategist
(313) 442-8369
janet.attarian [at] smithgroup.com