PEPPER CANYON MOBILITY HUB DESIGNATHON
Jungle Express
Designathon Challenge
The University of California, San Diego is in the midst of a long range development plan that includes the construction of multiple academic and residential buildings, expansion of roads to account for increased micro mobility, and a new mobility hub at the UCSD stop of the new San Diego Trolley. Campus planning is working on various infrastructure changes to account for larger incoming student body sizes, including promoting public transportation and micro mobility like bikes and electric scooters over personal vehicles. In a collaboration between campus planning, Sandag, Lime scooters, and local governments, the UCSD Design Lab put together a two day designathon where teams of students competed to research, design and present their own solutions to the challenges facing the growing UCSD community.
My team, Fyre Nation Station, consisted of 8 members. All of us were students but we varied in our grade standing and majors.
TOPICS WE HAD TO CONSIDER:
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Urban Designs: Transportation infrastructure, parking & charging, pick ups & drop offs, mobility access points, ecological augmentations
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Services and Programs: Station services & resources, programs & policies, art & creative interventions
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Data and Tech Solutions: Hardware, software, digital amenities, visualizations & sonifications, data strategies, logistics
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Time Horizons: Now (2019), Near (2020-2030), Future (2030+)
"The goal of Pepper Canyon Mobility Hub designathon projects is to increase mobility and access for all between the light rail trolley station and the broader UCSD campus."
Initial Research
We began our research by interviewing some of the available advisors so we could get a better understanding of the planned changes and how they will impact different stakeholders. The group of people that we talked to included architects, members of the UCSD Campus Planning department, engineers, members of Sandag, designers, UCSD faculty members, and students. Some of our findings and assumptions were:
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Students using the trolley might be tired, stressed, or in a rush
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Commuter students might need spaces to eat, study, or relax/socialize while waiting for the trolley
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Planned infrastructure changes include a new Design building with restaurant near the trolley stop, art pieces surrounding the Hub, and the widening of Rupertus Lane in preparation for increased foot and micro mobility traffic.
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The trolley and Mobility Hub will be utilized by a spectrum of people, including commuter students, students who work off campus, campus faculty & Staff, Hospital and Med School staff, and visitors to campus.
The biggest challenge that we encountered was the breadth of the challenge that was presented to us. The freedom to choose any potential problem, from what amenities we thought should be available at the Mobility Hub to ways to help trolley users utilize their time best, made it hard to narrow down what we thought was going to be the most important problem to address.
Narrowing the Scope
To help us narrow down the problem that we wanted our design to address, we decided to take a site visit to the future location of the Mobility Hub. Some of us took the scooters provided by Lime, while others walked so we could get different perspectives for what it would be like to travel to and from the Hub. At the site, the problem that was highlighted to us was how far the location was from all the different parts of campus. From experience as students, we knew that the campus is already difficult to navigate both because of its size and because it is on a hill. Walking between Warren College and Revelle College can take upwards of 20 minutes on a regular day, and is worsened in areas with a lot of cross foot traffic. We believed that the long, uphill walk from the Mobility Hub to the different parts of campus might deter some people from using it when other transportation options, like buses and rideshare, require less walking.
Lime provided us with free scooters to help us get around faster during the designathon and to give us a taste of how micro-mobility is used on campus.
The next step we took to narrow down the problem that we wanted to address was to identify the specific stakeholders that our design would be targeted for. Through interviews with various faculty members, as well as our own experiences, we identified the differences between the campus experiences of the various potential stakeholders.
COMMUTER STUDENTS: Students commute to campus from all over San Diego County, and often they have heavy bags and gear that is hard to carry around campus. Other than commuter lounges and study rooms, commuter students don’t have a “home base” on campus where they can leave their stuff, eat, or take a break between classes. They also might have a harder time walking around campus because some commuter students don’t get the chance to go home throughout the day, so they have to bring everything they need for the day with them when they come to campus. This is particularly difficult for students with physical disabilities who already might have a harder time getting around campus.
STUDENTS WHO TRAVEL OFF CAMPUS: We assume that both on and off-campus students might use the trolley to get to work, doctors appointments, internships, and more on a regular basis. These people are often on a tight schedule, and might have to be rushing to and from the trolley to be on time to their various obligations, including classes.
FACULTY AND STAFF: UCSD has thousands of faculty and staff that commute to campus, some from as far as Tijuana. Like commuter students, they sometimes have a lot of stuff that they bring with them. Some of the workers have offices or lounges where they can keep their stuff and relax, while others don’t.
HOSPITAL, MEDICAL SCHOOL, AND SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY(SIO) STUDENTS AND STAFF: The UCSD campus is very spread out, with places like SIO and the multiple hospitals located away from the main campus where the trolley and most other public transportation stops. These people use the UCSD shuttles, micro-mobility, rideshare, and personal vehicles to get where they need to go, but parking and rideshare can be expensive, and the school shuttles aren’t always predictable.
CAMPUS VISITORS: Since UCSD is a research university with undergraduate, graduate, and medical school programs, there are constant visitors. Some of the most common visitors are families of prospective students, visiting researchers and professors, attendees at different events and conferences, alumni, and even vendors. Visitors are often less familiar with the large campus and have trouble finding their way around. Different visitors who might use the trolley will have different needs depending on the purpose of their visit to UCSD.
In the end, we decided that our target stakeholders would be commuter students because we felt they would be the ones that would be utilizing the trolley the most on a regular basis. Since we had decided that the decentralized location of the Mobility Hub was the problem we wanted to address, we felt that commuter students were the ones who would be most impacted by the tiring walk. Having decided this, we came up with our problem statement:
The trolley station will bring many commuter students to campus; however, the main issue is that this demographic will face is the distance from the Hub to the center of campus. Most students walk around campus but the decentralized location of the station and the uphill terrain is not practical for a student on a busy schedule or students with physical disabilities.
Ideation
With our problem statement decided, we began individual ideation of post-its before sharing our ideas with the group. We focused on ideas that would make it easier for commuter students who will be using the trolley to get around campus. Some of the ideas that we came up with included lockers at the Hub where students can store the belongings they won’t need until later, a concierge delivery service that delivers their heavy belongings to other parts of campus, a ski lift from the Hub, an application that alerts users when the trolley is certain time intervals away to help them utilize their time best, autonomous shuttles that go to key areas of campus to lessen the walk, and a tram that runs along Rupertus Lane to Library Walk to bring students from the Hub to the center of campus. We decided we wanted to further explore the autonomous shuttles and Rupertus Lane tram ideas because they would be the most help getting students to different parts of campus in a way that was efficient for large quantities of commuters, and easiest for individuals with a lot of stuff to use. Before beginning to prototype the ideas, we first wanted to run the ideas by the campus planning and engineering advisors to get an understanding of the technical viability of both ideas.
AUTONOMOUS SHUTTLES:
We took inspiration from autonomous shuttles like this one when brainstorming ideas.
While the concept of autonomous shuttles was interesting to many of the advisors that we talked to, there were several key problems. Most importantly, regulations for autonomous shuttles, particularly larger ones, require that they only drive on vehicle-designated roads and not on pedestrian pathways. This is a problem because there aren’t any drivable roads through the center of UCSD, so most places are only accessible by driving around the perimeter of campus which can be extremely time consuming, especially during rush hour when there is a lot of vehicle and pedestrian traffic. In addition, there would be very few places to pick up and drop off students because most of the central locations around campus aren’t accessible by vehicle roads at all.
RUPERTUS LANE TRAM:
Our initial tram idea ran bi-directionally along Rupertus Lane, so that it wouldn't have to turn at each end and could shuttle people back and forth faster.
The idea we had was a bidirectional tram that would shuttle students from the Mobility Hub to Library Walk, a central pedestrian walkway on campus. From there, the walk to the rest of the main campus would be significantly shorter. We presented our tram idea to one of the campus planning staff members and received helpful feedback about the relevant regulations that we would need to consider when exploring this idea further. The street that we wanted to put this tram was Rupertus Lane, which is planned to be expanded into a large pedestrian and micro-mobility only road. Rupertus Ln. is also a designated fire lane, meaning that there needed to be enough room for a firetruck to drive through regardless of what else was put there. We also learned that traditional pedestrian walkways have to be 8 feet wide and bike paths need to be 10 feet wide to ensure proper traffic flow. One of the challenges that we encountered was that a tram would make it harder for pedestrians and bikers to cross Rupertus Lane perpendicularly, and it could pose safety issues because of a large vehicle driving along an already crowded street.
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In the end, we decided to rapid prototype the tram concept because with the expert feedback we received we felt it was a more viable option than autonomous shuttles. We also felt that by shuttling large quantities of people back and forth between the Hub and Library Walk at a much faster rate than walking, it would improve traffic flow along Rupertus Lane. The tram also accomplished our intended goal better because it made it easier for students to get from the trolley to the center of campus.
Prototyping
Before we began rapid prototyping our idea, we took a site visit to Rupertus Lane where we wanted the tram to be. We observed that the tram would be running past a lot of areas where students might want to get off the tram, but adding stops along the route would significantly increase the time it takes to go back and forth because of the time needed for passengers to get on and off. Instead, we came up with the idea of making airport-like moving walkways from the Hub to Library Walk. The walkways could easily be broken up into sections to allow people to get on and off
at different places without increasing the time it takes to get from one end to the other. Moving walkways would also be safer to pedestrians and bikers using the road because there wouldn’t be a large vehicle sharing the road with them. The walkway would also be more accessible to people with physical disabilities than current micro-mobility options because the walkway is wheelchair accessible and doesn’t require as much balance and control as bikes and scooters.
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Next, we looked into the dimensions of Rupertus Lane to make sure that the moving walkway would be able to fit on the street and leave adequate room for a fire lane, pedestrian walkway, and micro-mobility traffic. From campus planning, we found out that with the road expansion, Rupertus Lane will be 50ft wide. With 8ft of pedestrian traffic, 10ft of bike traffic, and an area of 20ft total that can be used as a fire lane, there was still enough room to put moving walkways in both directions along the street. We found that moving walkways come in three standard sizes: 24’, 32’, and 40’, meaning that even with two walkways and handrails, there would be enough room along the street. We also prototyped the addition of a cover over the walkway to protect the people using the walkway from both rain and sunshine.
Our first prototype was made using construction paper, plastic bags, pipe cleaners, and other craft supplies. It showed how we envisioned the bi-directional walkway on the left side of Rupertus Lane, covered by a glass tunnel.
Final Design
The final design that we presented had several considerations that differentiated it from our original walkway idea.
AESTHETICS & EXPERIENCE: Looking at the rapid prototype of the walkway that we made out of styrofoam, paper and other craft supplies, we realized that one challenge with having a large, covered walkway in the middle of an otherwise pedestrian road would be bulky and aesthetically unappealing. To fix that, we took inspiration from the Tunnel of Love in Ukraine and the Cypress Tree Tunnel in Point Reyes and decided to make the covering surrounding the moving walkway into a natural, zen experience, both from the inside and outside. We decided to make the walls of the covering out of
Our planned walkway would be made of three sections, with breaks at Russell Lane and at the Student Services Center.
glass to allow for the sun to shine in and for people inside the tunnel to be able to see where they are. Inside, on the ceiling, we wanted screens depicting different plants and wildlife, with nature sounds playing through speakers so that people riding along the walkway feel like they are moving through the jungle. On top, we planned to have a variety of plants and wildlife, with vines growing down the sides.
Our goal for the aesthetics of the tunnel was to create a tranquil, calming experience for the people using the tunnel and the ones walking by it. We assumed that a lot of the people who will use the tunnel might be stressed and in a rush, having just arrived on the trolley or going to the Hub, and we felt that surrounding the tunnel with plant life would create a moment of tranquility along an otherwise busy street.
POWER AND SUSTAINABILITY: The last factor that we needed to consider was how the walkway would be powered. We wanted a solution that was sustainable and wouldn’t require the school to pay for a lot of electricity to run it. Our initial idea was to have solar panels on the roof, but they alone wouldn’t provide enough power, so we came up with a supplementary idea. We were inspired by an art installation created by on of the designathon advisors that tracked pedestrian flow through sensors in floor tiles, and came up with the idea of electricity-generating bricks that would power the walkway using the pressure of pedestrian foot traffic. The combination of the bricks and solar panels would allow for the walkway to be powered sustainably and without relying on external sources for electricity.
Our final design was a sustainably powered moving walkway, surrounded by a terrarium-inspired glass covering. It operated from the Mobility Hub to Library Walk with breaks at Russell Lane and the Student Services Center to allow students to get on and off at different locations.
Our final prototype of the walkway was a rendering of the tunnel, with glass walls, foliage on the outside, and screens on the inside creating an overall relaxing effect.
Reflection
I learned a lot from participating in this Designathon, particularly about working on a team with strangers. Over the two days, we faced several challenges from teammates leaving in the middle to disagreements about which ideas to pursue and what to focus on. One of the biggest challenges we faced initially was keeping our focus on need finding instead of skipping right to ideation. Over the course of our research, there were several times when it was necessary to change the direction of our conversation to focus more on problems and less on individual solutions that were presented to make sure that our final design actually solved a problem. Our interests ranged widely as well, so until we visited the site of the Hub for the first time, we had a hard time deciding what problem we wanted to design a solution for.
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User research was another challenge that we had encountered because of the time frame of the designathon. We ended up relying a lot on the varying experiences of the eight members of the team for our different student perspectives. In the future, I would want to conduct more interviews and research early on to have more data to base some of our assumptions on.
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There were times during the designathon when we had a split team about which idea we wanted to pursue and what steps to take next, but it taught me a lot about the value of debate. Despite it being challenging at the time, by questioning each other's ideas and thought processes, I think we were able to come up with a more thoughtful design.
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