Blogging from Mexico City Summit: Reclaim the streets

Under the headline ‘A local vision for a global future’ the session on ‘Moving in the city’ in the programme for this morning at the UCLG in Mexico City, gave some interesting perspectives on the crucial role of mobility in the future of the sustainable city.

Mobility and how we shape our cities in relation to transportation will, according to the session’s panel, have ‘a tremendous effect on the success of the future city’. Wolfgang Schuster, the Lord Mayor of Stuttgart, defined sustainable mobility, firstly, as one that secures social inclusion by serving the population with transportation to education, work and shopping facilities, secondly, as an efficient organisation of logistics, and finally, as an important way to reduce GHG emissions and in that way improve the cities’ ecological issues. Read more about the sustainable mobility in the publications from ‘Cities for Mobility’ here 

The mobility patterns in Europe today are far from sustainable. We have more cars per 1000 inhabitants here, than they do in the growing economies of India and China. In Stuttgart they even have 4 times as many cars in the city as they have children! It goes without saying that we need to develop new mobility solutions to ensure the sustainability of the future city. Schuster points to the need for a new approach to transportation through e.g. car sharing and a strengthened intermodality between bikes, subways, busses and cars (Read more about intermodality here). We need to make a city for everybody – not just for the car owners.

In line with this, Walter Hook, Executive Director of Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), argues that reclaiming the streets for pedestrians and bicycles is the only option for the sustainable and progressive city. The young, creative and well educated workforce increasingly chooses to live in cities where cars are not dominant. He mentions Melbourne city centre and Curitiba (read more about Curitiba) as examples of a successful change in mobility patterns favouring the non polluting traffic. He concludes that the most progressive cities are the ones that have the courage to control and limit the use of cars and instead designate roads to busses and pedestrians. And in the end, these cities will develop the most sustainable mobility pattern for both inhabitants and environment.