Highway Robbery

Just how much land do we devote to highways, not just road surfaces, but verges, embankments, cuttings, car parks, and other related infrastructure byproducts? Do the professionals planning our towns and cities know? This chapter introduces an analytical tool to estimate the land-take of highways using mapping techniques to produce a plan or percentage figure and makes a comparative analysis across other urban centres. The outcome might be linked to quite different measures of civic success such as urban happiness, pedestrian safety, or retail occupancy.

Success Measures for Transforming Into Car-Free Cities

Private cars contribute heavily to air pollution and significantly lower air quality in cities. The number of deaths because of pollution and car accidents is increasing on a global level; therefore, achieving sustainable mobility in urban areas is essential. Hence, the transformation into a car-free model is not a marginal issue but rather a crucial need that should be a global trend. The biggest challenge in this transforming process is to minimize the dependency on private cars. This chapter reviews thoroughly some global practices of inspiring models of transforming into car-free cities around the world. This review aims to identify the success measures for the transformation of a car-free city through investigating the challenges that affected the adoption of the transformation process. This would potentially guide governments and policymakers to select the approach that copes effectively with the cultural, social, geographical, and economic characteristics of their countries.

Roads to Car-Free Cities

Motorized transport has been around for over a century and has benefited people in various ways. As awareness has increased of the negative effects of car use, efforts to reduce pollution, congestion, noise, and accidents have increased. Some cities have taken drastic measures to reduce the number of cars. The starting point of this chapter is a balanced intervention ladder that includes interventions that can either increase or decrease autonomy. The authors introduce the “three-dimensional balanced intervention ladder” as a framework that can be used to describe autonomy relating to reduced car use, balancing this against perceived accessibility and wellbeing. The consequences of travel mode changes have been substantially explored; however, the consequences with respect to accessibility and wellbeing in life have only recently been recognized. By reviewing current research, they identify knowledge gaps in the implementation of balanced interventions and make recommendations regarding the continued development based on autonomy, perceived accessibility, and wellbeing.

Greenways and Sustainable Urban Mobility Systems

This chapter describes how greenways can be a constituent of sustainable urban mobility (SUM) systems that reduce automobile dependence while simultaneously having positive environmental and social co-benefits. It begins by providing a brief background on the harmful effects of automobile dependency. A chronological review of the evolution of greenways as a typology, divided into five generations starting from pre-1900 until today, demonstrates how various economic, political, environmental, and social factors have shaped blue-green corridors in different cities, mainly in English-speaking countries. The discussion then focuses on the integration process between greenways and SUM planning, as well as highlighting some of the planning challenges and opportunities of (re)developing greenways to support as non-motorized transport corridors. By critically analyzing the evolution of greenways in relation to urban mobility and their integration process, this chapter supports green space, transport, and design professionals to work toward a shared vision of sustainable cities.

Urban Topology of Car-Free Cities

New technological and automobile discoveries of the 1900s have transformed man's life. Modernism hasn't just brought institutional and sociological evolution in human society but has also brought cultural change. Industrialization and the automobile revolution have made man dependent on machines, and the influence is reflected in his ecosystem. Cities grew to accommodate automobiles, and today, car dominance is affecting the urban environment in terms of health and social interaction in urban open spaces. The car-free city is a new concept that every city has to adopt for a better tomorrow. The study focuses on different topological parameters of car-free cities and identifies different parameters to be considered while developing a conceptual framework towards a car-free urban environment.

The Car-Free (Day) Movement

As various cities around the world are implementing car-free policies, the need to understand it from a dynamic point of view becomes more pronounced. In effect, by invoking the organic nature of urbanism, a complexity involving the growth of cities in relation to their environment and human society emerges. Seeking to contribute to an understanding of the production processes of space in the contemporary street, the discussion of the planning future of cities, and perspectives on urban transformation, this chapter aims to build an understanding of the production of spaces for public life in Indonesian cities from the perspective of planning, production, and culture in car-free (day) movement in Bandung. This chapter contributes to the process of spatial production in car-free (day) and implies a reflective paradigm of practice and its potential to illustrate in planning the street transformation-productions of public spaces within the current process of globalization in car-free scheme.

Contemplating the Street as a Place

Creating a street where people have the opportunity to interact with each other and socialize rather than suffer loneliness used to be a concern for many scholars over the past decades when automobiles dominated the street scene. This chapter highlights considerable contributions to recognize the role that streets play in the life of a community. It draws out essential requirements for restoring the social role of the street as a place. International practices emerging across the world are outlined in this chapter to draw on the lessons learned from their fresh approaches in putting people first when considering street designs. The chapter concludes with design recommendations that act as the guiding principle to integrate street function and user needs in a way that motivates positive opportunities to create streets as places.

The Dawn of Walkability

This explanatory research investigates the impact of configurations in the urban fabric on walkability regarding connectivity and global integration. This study aims to examine this effect by comparing street networks in two residential neighbourhoods in Heliopolis and New Cairo cities. The research methods use DepthMapX and Walk Score to provide relative indicators about distinctive features that enhance the walkability in the case studies. The results show significant differences between the walkability patterns and pedestrians gate counts in two case studies. In study areas, the pedestrian gate count, connectivity, and global integration give signs about people interactions during the day time. The findings figured out that the spatial configurations of street networks—that create urban fabric—play a vital role in enhancing the walkability. The possibility of simulation, to a great extent, can investigate other cases in future research with real situations on the ground. The results confirm a worthy choice for the space syntax technique as a predictor in analysing walkability.

Smart Cars, Smart Cities, and Smart Sharing

Streets, plazas, and parks are important components of a city that play a key role in affording socio-cultural, political, and economic activities for the benefit of society. The physical nature of these urban spaces facilitates sharing of resources, infrastructures, good, services, experiences, and capabilities. Recent socio-economic and technological changes have resulted in a new generation of city design and planning paradigms shifting the way that urban public and semi-public forms and spaces are designed, managed, and used. This chapter addresses the foundational changes brought by smart, or autonomous (AV), vehicles; smart city technologies; and the business models and associated technologies of sharing. The primary goal is to examine how these three socio-economic and technological changes may influence the use of current and future urban public space. It further informs designers on how urban spaces can provide opportunities to create new relationships of use and engaging public experiences through technology.

Confronting the Conundrum of Shared Space Street Design

This chapter discusses the challenges and debates related to the concept of shared space street design via demonstrating the case of the ongoing Masterplan development scheme of the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), in Preston, North West England, United Kingdom. Based on hands-on experience, being involved with the project on multiple layers, in project management, working, and living in Preston City, the authors employ observational analysis methods to explore and reflect on the challenges UCLan Masterplan has faced, how it learned from the city's most recent Shared Space development (the Fishergate Project), and they further expand on their prediction on how the project may influence the transformation of Preston's public realm. This chapter aims to start a debate on how Shared Space tactics can lead to near-to car-free urban zones and contribute to the enhanced people-focused urban experience.