Detroit will share in a $5.25 million project to help cities tap into the self-driving car revolution.

The Motor City, along with Long Beach and San Jose, California, Miami and Pittsburgh, have been selected as part of a five-year, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation initiative to bring "residents to the center of self-driving vehicle pilot projects."

Detroit's project will focus on how to connect Detroiters to employment hubs, according to a news release from the Knight Foundation. It's a challenge that was perhaps most notably described in a 2015 Free Press story about James Robertson's 21-mile walking commute, which led to Robertson's nickname as Detroit's Walking Man and shined a spotlight on the dysfunctional public transportation system in southeast Michigan.

Details on exactly how much each city will receive are still being worked out. Mark de la Vergne, chief of mobility innovation for the Detroit Mayor's Office, said the grant would support Detroit's mobility efforts.

"This grant will be used to advance our efforts towards integrating new types of mobility services and technologies, such as autonomous vehicles, with our traditional (Detroit Department of Transportation) services. It will be used (to) start a multiyear conversation with Detroiters around autonomous vehicles and the future of mobility as well as pilot new types of services to address first- and last-mile issues that exist between where our residents live and work," de la Vergne said.

The Knight Foundation program is part of the nonprofit group's effort to create "people-centered Smart Cities," the release said.

"The pilot projects will be designed to engage local residents around self-driving car deployments to ensure that they reflect community input and meet local needs. Leaders from the five pilot cities will share what they learn and meet regularly to generate insights and lessons for other communities trying to keep up with the increasing pace of testing and deployment of self-driving vehicles," the release said.

The release, citing a National League of Cities report, said that only 6 percent of the transportation plans of 68 large U.S. cities had weighed the impact of autonomous vehicles on urban mobility, even as automakers are pouring billions of dollars into self-driving vehicle research and are testing the technology on public roads.

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“Autonomous vehicles are one of the most disruptive technologies of our time, holding significant implications for the way we move, work and interact within communities,” Lilian Coral, Knight Foundation director for national strategy and technology innovation, said in the release. “Important conversations are happening among government and industry on what these changes mean for the future, but residents have largely been left from the table. Without their input, we risk designing cities for new kinds of cars, rather than for people.”

Here are descriptions, from the release, of the four other city efforts:

Long Beach: To provide residents with more short-distance travel options by better integrating electric or human-powered transit (e.g. bikes, scooters, etc.) and other transportation methods, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions; improving air quality; and creating a safer, healthier, and more sustainable city.

Miami: To develop driverless, on-demand shuttles as an alternative to buses that drive a fixed route.

Pittsburgh: To develop sustainability and support neighborhoods by slowing the growth of single-occupant vehicle trips.

San Jose: To better integrate autonomous vehicles with other forms of transit and help improve public life by connecting residents to jobs, and destinations for retail and nightlife, in downtown San Jose.

Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @_ericdlawrence.