Giving Compass' Take:

• Smart Cities Dive reports on the LA CoMotion event in Los Angeles and how city leaders feel about the rapid emergence of new innovations when creating new mobility options. 

• How does more infrastructure funding work into the discussion? And what about environmentally-friendly transportation options, such as the bike sharing programs mentioned in this piece?

• Here's more about the complicated challenges of user-centered transportation. 

An open mindset is needed both among city leaders and their residents to help new mobility options take hold, even as the pace of change remains astonishingly high.

Those were some of the key takeaways from the first day of LA CoMotion, a two-day conference in Los Angeles celebrating changes in mobility and transportation and looking ahead to the future.

The event kicked off with the host city signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the City of Montreal, Quebec to share data on mobility and transportation, so that the two cities can learn from each other and collaborate on best practices. In a speech to begin the conference, John Rossant, founder and chief curator of LA CoMotion and the chairman of nonprofit NewCities, described it as an "unprecedented agreement to cooperate in the field of mobility."

The MOU brings together two cities that have differing relationships with transit. Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said during a panel discussion that she has never owned a car, and she ran for office with the promise of expanding options in what she described as a “mobility cocktail” that includes bike-sharing, ride-hailing and other modes.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles is making moves to expand its mobility options, having been built around car usage but now struggling with crippling traffic congestion and looking for ways to alleviate it. In recent times, the city has partnered with dockless bike- and scooter-sharing companies Lime and Spin to share data on usage, while new ride-hailing pilot programs have launched and the Metro transit system is the subject of higher investment.

Read the full article about changes in mobility by Chris Teale at Smart Cities Dive.