Journal of Urban Mobility最新文献

In the past three years the 15-minute city planning concept has captured the attention of policy makers and the public worldwide. Some regions have included it in their planning goals and others modified it to 30 min to make it more attainable in their local context. The goal of this research is to measure whether the 15- or 30-minute city goals align with current travel behaviour and land use patterns in the North American context using Montreal, Canada as the case study. In doing so, we look at which destinations are cultivating local travel patterns consistent with the 15- and 30-minute city concepts and identify any unique qualities of these areas using the 2018 Montreal origin-destination travel diaries. Our bivariate analysis finds very few destinations in Montreal where a high number of trips and high percentage of trips are ending using a sustainable mode of transport and below the 15- or 30-minute travel time threshold. We further investigate the land use patterns that align with the 15- and 30-minute city to recommend realistic planning goals and policy interventions that match the North American context. The findings from this research can be of interest to transport professionals and policy makers trying to implement the 15- or 30- minute city concepts to their regions.

The 15-minute city theory has recently become a popular paradigm in urban development. It claims that everyone should have access to the essential services, facilities and green spaces within a 15-minute walk. This article tests this concept in Oslo, Norway using a mixed-methods approach, based on a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) analysis of accessibility, review of relevant plans, interviews with planners and a case study of the Hovinbyen area. The objective was to find out to what extent Oslo is a 15-minute city, and discuss how this concept can be integrated in urban planning strategies more generally. The study shows that the central part of Oslo is already a 15-minute city, and that several areas are transforming in this direction. However, many suburban neighborhoods have low accessibility scores, and, according to the plans, will likely not change much in the future. This article argues that the 15-minute city concept cannot serve as the main development strategy, but such an analysis can be useful as a diagnostic study or to assist planning in rapidly changing areas or city extensions. The concept can therefore be considered as a flexible tool to support other planning strategies that share the same goals and ambitions. Any interventions that such accessibility analyses suggest should be contextualized and developed in combination with other qualitative assessments and in partnership with local communities.

This study provides a qualitative exploration of the spatial equity implications of Barcelona's superblocks strategy, focusing on the newly pedestrianised “green axes” implemented in 2023. By examining the extent to which pedestrianisation may contribute to the creation of “winner” and “loser” streets in the same neighbourhood, the study complements previous literature in this area, which has mainly focused on assessing spatial equity between different neighbourhoods. The study is based on 11 qualitative interviews and a focus group with key stakeholders involved in the design and implementation of the superblocks plan. In the findings, I review the main spatial equity implications of the new green axes, identify trade-offs between equity and viability of implementation, and examine the measures taken by the municipality to minimise inequities between streets. My findings show that the spatial equity implications of pedestrianisation are complex and multidimensional. Although pedestrianisation may strengthen inequities between streets, the gains experienced by pedestrianised streets are not limited to residents living on those streets. However, pedestrianised streets risk becoming a victim of their success, experiencing significant public space and gentrification pressures. Transforming more streets simultaneously might contribute to spread these pressures more evenly, but risks creating greater political and social backlash.

Time can be a more practical and informal metric than distance when planning activities, but perceptions of walking duration can vary greatly depending on, for instance, the physical fitness of the individual walking, the topography of the route, or the weather conditions at the time of the walk. This investigation gathers 4,970 Twitter responses to the question, ‘Is 23 minutes walking distance?’, and uses a mixed-methods approach to investigate walking thresholds with four main goals. First, a descriptive overview of responses and analysis of public discussion identifies attitudes, with 63.3% of respondents agreeing that 23 minutes is acceptable. Second, a thematic analysis identifies 27 themes important to walking thresholds within four categories: external (31.4%), circumstantial (32.8%), accessibility (22.0%), and subjective (13.8%). Third, a sentiment analysis using Azure Machine Learning statistically determines and categorizes opinions about a 23-minute walking threshold, confirming agreement (mean=0.547). Fourth, ANOVA mean-comparison tests determine the sentiment with each theme, with 18 themes negatively and one theme positively associated with a 23-minute walking threshold. Results indicate that while 23 minutes is theoretically a generally agreeable walking distance, a number of factors significantly reduce this threshold making it less agreeable in practice. Understanding the factors influencing walking thresholds, or the point at which another mode is considered or the trip is not taken, is crucial for a better understanding of travel behavior and, in turn, more equitable urban planning, transportation management, and infrastructure development.

We analyze the effect of a bicycle lane on traffic speeds. Computer vision techniques are used to detect and classify the speed and trajectory of over 9,000 motor-vehicles at an intersection that was part of a pilot demonstration in which a bicycle lane was temporarily implemented. After controlling for direction, hourly traffic flow, and the behavior of the vehicle (i.e., free-flowing or stopped at a red light), we found that the effect of the delineator-protected bicycle lane (marked with traffic cones and plastic delineators) was associated with a 28 % reduction in average maximum speeds and a 21 % decrease in average speeds for vehicles turning right. For those going straight, a smaller reduction of up to 8 % was observed. Traffic moving perpendicular to the bicycle lane experienced no decrease in speeds. Painted-only bike lanes were also associated with a small speed reduction of 11–15 %, but solely for vehicles turning right. These findings suggest an important secondary benefit of bicycle lanes: by having a traffic calming effect, delineated bicycle lanes may decrease the risk and severity of crashes for pedestrians and other road users.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered significant changes in sustainable mobility in many large and well-known cities of the Global North, such as Paris, Milan or New York. Soon, various large Latin American cities followed suit, taking advantage of this global trend that included significant street experiments. However, it is less clear how these changes affected intermediate cities in this large region and how the population perceived these changes.

This paper analyzes the series of street experiments developed in Chilean intermediate cities during the COVID-19 pandemic. We intend to analyze to what extent intermediate cities have engaged in street experimentations and to examine the perceptions associated to street experiments. To this purpose, we surveyed public officials from Chilean intermediate cities and then focused on examining the street experiments developed in Quilpué, a city located 125 km west of Santiago.

The results showed that 9 of the 10 intermediate cities surveyed carried out interventions, with the emergency bicycle lane being the most frequent measure, followed by the widening of sidewalks. These were located in areas of high pedestrian flows and were mostly financed by own funds and ministerial funds. However, the main difficulty encountered was budgetary. In the case of Quilpué, shopkeepers have a rather negative view of the process, which was perceived as not very inclusive and participatory, with harmful consequences for the operation of their businesses. These results show that, to be more successful and gain long-term recognition, street experiments should pay more attention to community involvement, especially in small urban areas with deep-rooted auto-centric ways of thinking.

Experimentation, and street experiments in particular, have led to considerable academic and policy advances in sustainable and inclusive (mobility) planning over the past years. With increased popularity and confidence, the street experiments field has recently begun to turn to in-depth discussions on design and upscaling, more than questions of its own legitimacy or relevance. This commentary nevertheless explores four recurring critiques of (street) experimentation and proposes how looking more deeply at them might empower, rather than weaken, such initiatives. Engaging with these critiques is therefore not meant as a renewed criticism, per se, of (street) experiments. Rather, it recognizes that getting into the technicalities and specific designs and elements that might improve street experiments and their capacity to impact change advances knowledge in the field, but argues that advocates must not forget some key baseline critiques they might face - and be ready to either defend or amend their choices accordingly. This commentary is a call to be more creative and less conforming, and to come back again to the deeper motivations for what (street) experiments are meant to do; or develop a better understanding of those motivations. This commentary also leaves open questions that will require further research. Disconfirming some of the hypotheses emerging here would be no less interesting than confirming them. I hope the readers will thus see this commentary as an invitation for debating and exploring these critiques and reflections further.

Promoted by sustainable urban agendas and urged by global pandemic measures, street experiments (SE) are booming in Europe but remain latent in Asia. These experiments aim to reconfigure streets as more than spaces for motorized traffic movements, enabling a temporary urban paradigm shift. Such a shift involves balancing active mobility and public space uses in streets while envisioning radically different settings and uses. Recently, eminent scholars urged considering SE in connection to the system and planning framework within which SE are conceived to trace their trajectories. This article examines four decades of temporary-pedestrianization policies and planning instruments in Hong Kong, an Asian city representative of high-density urban environments with highly intensive use of road space and conservative and prescriptive planning. In doing so, the article identifies four trajectories and illustrates two emblematic cases: Chater Road, the first street temporarily pedestrianized under a commercial initiative, and Sai Yeung Choi Street South, a street pedestrianized under a government initiative, now turned back to its original function. The competing roles and practical uses that pedestrianized streets must fulfil partially determined their fate. However, the trajectories these cases followed also differ due to the contextual planning approach and decision-making process. The study contributes to scholarship on SE by shedding new light on the geographical context of high-density urban Asia, forwarding challenges that policymakers might need to address in the planning and governance of SE in similar environments.

In June 2020 the Local Council Association (LCA) in Malta launched the ‘Slow Streets’ action plan to promote active travel and use public transport, while at the same time provide information to reduce mobility. This paper explores people's perceptions and opinions towards this action plan, and the opportunities and challenges perceived and anticipated experiences in the future implementation of it. To do this we use two qualitative datasets: people's perceptions from 84 semi-structured interviews and an N focus group amongst stakeholders. The semi-structured interviews were conducted between February 2022 and April 2022 by intercepting people in the streets of six localities that showed interest in being part of the action plan. The online focus group was conducted in February 2022. The findings show that 66 % of the resident participants were not aware of the action plan, which is of concern when considering the topic of stakeholder involvement. From the qualitative analysis three main themes emerged: car culture, safety and policy. People agreed that there should be permanent interventions to reduce car use. Both stakeholder groups agreed that urban areas should have safe environments for children to play, and engage in sustainable mobility and healthier lifestyles.

Planning infrastructures and services for sustainable urban mobility is one of the main challenges for European cities. Following these principles, in March 2022, Omitted for blind peer review and the Omitted for blind peer review built a new public space for children in a dismissed parking area located near to a middle school, using the approach of tactical urban planning and participatory design. In this context, this study proposes a methodology for the integration of long term camera-based monitoring for the assessment of temporary streets experiments. The method differs from previous work from literature in its continuous and systematic approach, fostering the implementation of large scale quantitative methodologies in urban interventions. The area was the subject of an extended mobility study with the objective to monitor pedestrian and vehicular flows through video analytics techniques and to detail specific patterns of space use during the pre/ post-intervention phases (data collected over two months). The results of the analyses were processed in order to: (i) identify the activation times of the study area, through metrics describing cumulative pedestrian density and cumulative dwell time; (ii) characterize the relative uses of the study areas following the plaza redevelopment. Results revealed a 43 % growth in the cumulative dwell time recorded in the area following the redevelopment intervention. New use characteristics related to furniture in the plaza emerged, with the most significant cumulative dwell times increase being recorded around these spots. The results presented in this research have made it possible to quantify the effectiveness of the proposed urban regeneration intervention, confirming the use of sensors and innovative analysis technologies to support the iterative design process of urban regeneration interventions.