Self-driving cars will fundamentally change how we live and work. But not all of those changes will be positive.

Charging drivers more could provide much-needed funding for public transit, while reducing traffic and making Manhattan a better place to live and work.

In partnership with the Earth Institute’s Center for Sustainable Urban Development, the M.S. in Sustainability Management program has developed an exciting new inter-disciplinary course entitled Access, Innovation, and the Urban Transportation Transition. This class draws on a series of lectures, a case study approach and experiential learning in New York City.

“We have conflated mobility with access, but mobility is not the same as access. The best solution to a transportation problem is to not have to travel. The city itself was invented as a solution to a transportation problem. We have cities so we don’t have to travel.”

This Earth Day, April 22, 2016, New York City residents and commuters are encouraged to leave their car at home and use another means of travel as part of the city’s first year of Car-Free Day. Find out what Columbia University is doing in support of #CarFreeNYC.

Though driverless cars sound like something out of the “The Jetsons,” they are just one of many innovations already under way in the realm of personal transportation.