World Car Free Day London Summit 19-20 September 2019

SCAPE 1 THE CITY THE FUTURE OF OUR STREETS 2

Tis report is a collation of contributions from participants in the World Car Free Day London Summit 19-20 September 2019. Te Summit brought together participants from around the world to engage in action oriented debate and discussion on the transition to zero emissions, traﬃc-free city centres. Te conference was convened by Car Free Day CIC. Puting this report together was a shared eﬀort, and, as always, responsibility for any errors in the resulting work are the sole responsibility of Car Free Day CIC. We would like to extend our thanks to all of the contributors and all of the generous London Summit sponsors for making the event possible. ABOUT LONDON CAR FREE DAY LONDON — SCAPE THE CITY. THE FUTURE OF LONDON STREETS STREETS THE FUTURE OF LONDON SCAPE THE CITY. 3

Introduction 4 A global transition to traﬃc-free city centres

Urban movement as a data generating activity 8 Herman Donner + Michael Steep

Making the case for car-free cities 10 Audrey de Nazelle

Say goodbye to parking spaces 12 Annete Jezierska

Rethinking micro-mobility for 2030 14 Fredrik Hjelm

Making cities ﬁt for the future 16 Sheila Watson

Edinburgh’s City Centre Transformation strategy 18 Daisy Narayanan

Oslo 20 Kristine Solgaard + Sigurd Oland Nedrelid

Puebla, Mexico 22 Giovanni Zayas

POSTCARDS FROM THE FUTURE Lagos 2030 24 Kingsley Iweka CAR FREE DAY LONDON —

Vancouver 2030 26 Hamish Stewart

New York 2030 28 Hamish Stewart

Milano 2030 30 Marco Picardi

Athens 2030 32 Marco Picardi

London 2030 34 Marco Picardi + Hamish Stewart CONTENTS SCAPE THE CITY. THE FUTURE OF LONDON STREETS STREETS THE FUTURE OF LONDON SCAPE THE CITY. 4 Every day, people living in cities interact with their local streets. We use our streets to go to work or reach cultural activities, to receive deliveries, to meet friends or to stroll around. Our streets are our cities’ truest public spaces. Tey unavoidably shape our daily lives.

At the time of publication, as cities everywhere respond to Covid-19’s challenges, it is becoming clearer than ever that street space is fundamental to what some are calling an existential crisis of urban living. Te need for spatial distancing squeezes active travel to the margins, illuminating just how much space has been surrendered to parking and vehicles. Panic buying and empty supermarket shelves highlight the vulnerability of supply chains. New questions emerge: how can we travel around the city safely? Where can we create new gardens to localise food production? Will pop-up bike lanes eventually pop-down?

How we manage our streets will determine our future prosperity and wellbeing. By 2030, the world is likely to add new urban areas the size of Mongolia, over 1.5 million km. Much of this expanded area will cover agricultural land, and between 30%- 60% of this total urban area will be concrete roads and parking. Te apparent functional appeal of movement corridors and dormitories for cars, disguises an overall ineﬃcient approach

INTRODUCTION to land use. Our preference for the internal combustion engine vehicle over people creates great stretches of empty concrete, driving habitat loss, species extinction, the destruction of prime agricultural land, air pollution, ﬂood risk, and negative health impacts [2]. Tis destructive land use patern is the result of designing cities for the internal combustion engine vehicle rather than for people. O-ROURKE-POTOCKI, PICARDI, STEWART O-ROURKE-POTOCKI, — Joao Cabral © INTRODUCTION Image 5 AG Z AG © Image

Troughout history, humans have focused much of our energy on creating cities, and now that most of humanity lives in cities, cities are shaping our future prospects as a species. According to research from Yale University “the conversion of Earth’s land surface to urban uses is one of the most irreversible human impacts on the global biosphere” [3]. And people around the world continue to ﬂock to densely packed cities in pursuit of economic opportunity. In Dharavi, a Mumbai neighbourhood, 700,000 people live on just over 1 km2 of land. Tis dense setlement produces an estimated 25 percent of that city’s gross domestic product [4]. In the United Kingdom, the relationship is similar with London accounting for about one quarter of the entire country’s GDP [5]. Around the world, cities are economic engines of growth and prosperity, but more eﬃcient, equitable land use is required for this to continue. Te twin challenges of yawning economic inequality and climate change risk destroying cities’ incredible role as drivers of global prosperity. Tat is why it is so important to see London and other global cities come together to rethink and take bold action to alter the future form of our cities on World Car Free Day and beyond.

Changing the design of our cities is necessary for the prosperity and O-ROURKE-POTOCKI, PICARDI, STEWART O-ROURKE-POTOCKI, health of all human societies and our shared environment. Like all — great transitions, the systematic transition to traﬃc-free city centres and cleaner air starts from the ground up, with residents coming together to test out new ideas and approaches to using the streets, our most abundant shared public space. INTRODUCTION 6 Traﬃc-removal and the transition to healthier cities Te way we choose to design and build our cities is also fundamental to the transition to net zero emissions and more achieve more equitable cities. Te way our cities are structured and powered shapes our health, happiness and prosperity. Te role of urban form in determining public health outcomes is abundantly clear here in London, which is struggling admirably to deal with some of the worst air quality in Western Europe.

We know that most urban air pollution comes from motor vehicles. We are fortunate to understand the source of the problem. At the global scale, emissions from the transport sector are also a major driver of climate change, accounting for around 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions [6]. Accelerating the transition to traﬃc-free city centres and zero emissions transport systems is a great opportunity to drive economic growth and improve environmental health outcomes for all citizens. As one of the wealthiest cities in the world, London is uniquely positioned to lead the way.

Pawel L Pawel In spite of being one of the wealthiest and most powerful © cities in the world, London’s politicians could show more initiative on removing traﬃc and cleaning the air. With Image the automotive and fossil fuel industry lobbies ﬁrmly in control of public policy in the United Kingdom and other countries, citizens must demand more assertive action by their elected leaders to overcome a powerfully entrenched status quo. Globally, the WHO atributes 4.2 million deaths every year to exposure to outdoor air pollution [7]. Tis will remain the case until political leaders initiate meaningful change.

Te land use transition opportunity Te greatest opportunity of all in going traﬃc-free is the land that is freed up for alternative uses as new public Immortal Shots

© parks, public realm, aﬀordable housing and productive space. In the private car-dominated cities of today, road Image surfaces and parking take up an average of 30% of urban land. In North American cities and international cities following an American urban design matrix, roads and parking lots can account for up to 60% of the total urban land surface [8]. Tat is why cities from Addis Ababa and

O-ROURKE-POTOCKI, PICARDI, STEWART O-ROURKE-POTOCKI, Amsterdam to London, Paris, New York and Brussels are

— all rethinking their streets and reclaiming redundant road and parking space for more socially and economically productive uses. Leaders like Oslo and Edinburgh are already acting on the land use transition opportunity. INTRODUCTION London’s opportunity to lead the way 7 London is one of the world’s densest, most dynamic global cities, yet roads still consumes 80% of all public space [9]. On-street parking alone takes up an area larger than the Borough of Southwark, around 8000 hectares of land. So far, Amsterdam is leading the way, with plans to transition over 10,000 parking spaces to alternative uses. As cities around the world plot their recovery from coronavirus, we are optimistic that London will show the leadership it is capable of through the 2020s.

As local governments deploy unprecedented public realm initiatives in response to today’s Covid-19 crisis, it is now up to us to ensure that this ‘temporary’ relief becomes a ‘transitional’ to support a lasting inclusive and adaptable streetscape tomorrow.

Hamish Stewart

Hana Mara Helena O’Rourke-Potocki © Marco Picardi Image

Co-Founders, London Car Free Day

REFERENCES [1] ‘68% of the world’s population is projected to live in urban areas by 2050, says UN’ (16.05.2018): htps://www.un.org/development/ desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization- prospects.html [2] Seto et al (2011) ‘A Meta-Analysis of Global Urban Land Expansion:’ htps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/ journal.pone.0023777 [3] ‘Environmental Impacts of Urban Growth:’ htps://urban.yale.edu/ research/theme-4 [4] ‘Building the Cities We Need’ (09.04.2019): htps://www. lincolninst.edu/publications/articles/presidents-message-2. By comparison, Greater London has a population density of 4,542 inhabitants per square kilometre (11,760/sq mi). [5] htp://mori-m-foundation.or.jp/english/ius2/gpci2/index.shtml [6] ‘Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data:’ htps://www.epa.gov/

ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data PICARDI, STEWART O-ROURKE-POTOCKI,

[7] ‘Ambient air pollution - a major threat to health and climate:’ — htps://www.who.int/airpollution/ambient/en/ [8] ‘Land Use Footprint in Selected Central Areas:’ htps:// transportgeography.org/?page_id=10299 [9] ‘Healthy Streets for London:’ www.content.tﬂ.gov.uk/healthy- streets-for-london.pdf INTRODUCTION 8 URBAN MOVEMENT AS A DATA GENERATING ACTIVITY

Herman Donner Postdoctoral Researcher, Stanford University

Michael J. T. Steep Executive Director and Adjunct Professor, Stanford University

As urban populations grow, cities across the globe are grappling with congestion and strained infrastructure. Te outlook for the near future is grim. Traﬃc congestion is on the rise across the United States in an apparently self-fulﬁlling cycle of declining public transport use and reduced funding to revive these systems. Exceptions to this trend like the expansion of the Los Angeles subway system for the 2028 Olympics exist, but for cities like New STEEP

+ York and San Francisco, public transport is in a dire state as traffic congestion worsens. Te economic cost of congestion - not counting the land use subsidy implicit in free parking and taxpayer-financed roads - was estimated at $305 billion in 2017 for the United States DONNER alone. At the national level, Los Angeles, New York, Miami and San — Francisco all stand out with estimated traffic congestion-linked costs exceeding $2000 per driver per year [1].

Beyond the current state of gridlock and crumbling public transit infrastructure, a truly digital city could actually make it possible for people to move seamlessly from point A to B in the year 2030. A truly digital city means a space of continuously connected consumers, smart and network-enabled devices and digitalised records enabling real-time digital representation of all social and commercial activity. At present, urban environments are being digitalised, but not by city governments – as typically assumed by those in the Smart City sphere. Tis work is being done as part of privately funded R&D targeted at urban consumers. Private sensors on infrastructure and buildings, smartphones, vehicles, credit card transactions, online search histories, networks and applications that identify user demand and preferences are now generating enormous amounts of data. With the help of machine learning and cloud computing, aggregated data can be used to create granular consumer profiles owned by private companies. URBAN MOVEMENT AS A DATA GENERATING ACTIVITY ACTIVITY GENERATING AS A DATA URBAN MOVEMENT In this broader context, mobility needs to be understood as just one of 9 many services enabled by technology in cities. From ordering food on Uber Eats, using Google Maps to find your way to a meeting or using Facebook to learn about nearby events and riding an e-scooter to the train station. As networked devices grow to beter understand our lifestyle, needs and preferences, it becomes possible to create new services based on contextual intelligence. Location is a key component in this contextualisation. Examples of location-based services are smartphone- based offers for a ‘two for one’ dinner at a nearby restaurant when noticing that you are having drinks with a friend or geting a discount on your favorite brand of spagheti when you are walking into a store.

As private companies digitalize urban environments, opportunities arise for city governments to use this digital infrastructure to implement smarter policies that increase quality of life for residents. For example, city governments can ensure that Shared Autonomous Vehicles are a ﬁrst and last mile option that expands on existing public transport options and helps to connect suburbs to the city centre. People will get live-updates on travel-times, and additional busses or tram cars can be directed to strained sections of a city – potentially reducing wait times. Payment for mobility services could become genuinely seamless and connected to facial recognition so that there is no need to stand in line or learn a new ticketing system, with a virtual assistant on hand to provide clear directions on the best route.

Data can also shape a city’s physical appearance. With big data and machine learning applications now able to predict where people will move STEEP and when, how a new oﬃce or retail development in one end of a city will + change movement of people who live in another neighbourhood, and how continuously connected consumers react to commuting time, pricing and availability of mobility services. Other technologies can make cities cleaner DONNER

and more eﬃcient, such as robotics enabled vertical indoor farms in city — centers that dramatically decrease the need for transport of produce, and autonomous zero emissions vehicles delivering food directly to homes.

Te way that we move in cities in the year 2030 will be inﬂuenced by companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook collecting mountains of personal data for commercial purposes. Tis inevitability creates both a need to proactively regulate these new data markets and an opportunity to collect data to beter inform public policy at all levels of government. As public investment in urban infrastructure from transport to aﬀordable housing lags ever increasing needs, data and analytics will be essential to solve many of the challenges that cities face, and to prioritise investment decisions. Whether or not the public sector understands how cities are being digitalised will determine the extent to which technology will lead us on path towards seamless mobility, or into a spiral of gridlock fed with online shopping and autonomous vehicles.

REFERENCE Hugo for pexels

Audrey de Nazelle Senior Lecturer Centre for Environmental Policy Imperial College London

Whether it’s climate change, physical inactivity, air pollution, traffic injuries, social isolation, stress, or socioeconomic inequality, we are approaching a consensus point on the fact that these major urban environmental and health challenges need to be addressed profoundly and urgently. But the way we address these problems maters. Conventional approaches have tended to rely on siloed and ofen piecemeal approaches. Tese compromised responses sometimes have knock-on effects and unintended consequences. For example the short-sighted push for diesel fuel in the UK transport system to help meet greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets has resulted in devastating health effects from associated air pollution. Tis was a well understood risk of encouraging the use of diesel fuel in the transport fleet. If we remind ourselves of the purpose of tackling each of the challenges listed above, with the goal of creating a healthier, more sustainable and resilient society, we will find different types of solutions. Te global push for car-free cities is a striking illustration of cross-cuting solutions to some of these issues.

We only need to step out into the street in most cities, and the problem is obvious: cars dominate the urban landscape. In cities around the world, motor vehicles are amongst the greatest contributors to the deadliest environmental risk: air pollution, which causes more than 4 million deaths each year, in addition to approximately 1.3 million road fatalities [1]. Simply replacing internal combustion engine vehicles with DE NAZELLE

— so-called ‘zero emission’ vehicles, namely electric cars and delivery vehicles, will not aﬀect particulate mater emissions or necessarily reduce pedestrian and cyclist fatalities on the road. Tire and brake wear account for most of the particulate mater air pollution from motor vehicles, and this will continue to be the case even with electric vehicles.

Simply switching the vehicle type will also not reassure parents about leting their kids walk or bike to school or play in the streets. Until we switch the focus of mobility and transport planning away from automobiles, we will continue to struggle with childhood inactivity and obesity. Currently, over 41 million 5-year-olds are classified as obese by the WHO [2]. Tat is too many. Sedentary lifestyles and car-dependent mobility may also be a key cause of increasing adult obesity. Our recent research found that in a large European sample population, car drivers were on average 4kg heavier than cyclists, and that over time, the more people cycled, the more likely they were to lose rather than gain weight [3]. MAKING THE CASE FOR CAR FREE CITIES MAKING THE CASE FOR Te physical activity benefits one obtains from daily walking and cycling go far beyond the 11 maintenance of a healthy body weight. Tis activity also protects against cardiovascular disease, diabetes, colon and breast cancer, cognitive decline and depression, among other ailments. Te more people cycle or walk to get around the city, the more they feel good about their health, the more they interact with others, and the less they feel stressed or isolated [4]. Even if one focuses only on the most dramatic outcome - death - studies show that the physical activity benefits of active travel are seven to thirty times greater than the air pollution benefits from removing or reducing emissions from cars [5]. So even if the air in London and other cities is polluted, it is still worth geting active outside from a life expectancy perspective. City streets must be made safer through systematic traffic removal to support more active lifestyles for residents of all ages.

Removing cars from our city centres and prioritising active travel will help with one of the top killers of young people worldwide: traﬃc accidents. But it will also free up space currently occupied by cars. Tis space can then be systematically re-purposed to serve a higher economic and social purpose. Alternative land uses can include play areas for children and adults, as well as new greenspace that promotes biodiversity, mental and physical health, more eﬃcient stormwater management, heat protection, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. Once urban land is reclaimed from the private automobile, the opportunities for alternative uses become abundant.

In many cities, walking, cycling and taking public transport may already be convenient and low-cost alternatives to driving, and potentially the most equitable forms of mobility. But we need everyone’s help to make sure that these healthier options are always the safest, most comfortable and most obvious solutions for all urban residents. Te academic and policymaking communities will continue to expand the evidence on the multiple beneﬁts of car-free cities. To turn these beneﬁts from academic evidence into reality will require all of us to act. Craig Adderley © DE NAZELLE — Image

REFERENCES [1] WHO (2018) ‘Global status report on road safety:’ htps://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_ status/2018/en/ [2] WHO ‘Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health: childhood overweight and obesity:’ htps://www.who. int/dietphysicalactivity/childhood/en/ [3] Dons, E et al. (2018) ‘Transport mode choice and body mass index: Cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence from a European-wide study’, Environ Int, 119: 109-16: htps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29957352 [4] Avila-Palencia, I et al. (2018) ‘Te eﬀects of transport mode use on self-perceived health, mental health, and social contact measures: A cross-sectional and longitudinal study’, Environment International, 120: 199-206: htps://www. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30098553 [5] Rojas-Rueda, D et al. (2012) ‘Replacing car trips by increasing bike and public transport in the greater Barcelona metropolitan area: A health impact assessment study’, Environment International, 49: 100-09; Woodcock, J et al. (2009) ‘Public health beneﬁts of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: urban land transport’, Lancet, 374: MAKING THE CASE FOR CAR FREE CITIES MAKING THE CASE FOR 1930-43: htps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23000780 12 SAY GOODBYE TO PARKING SPACES

Annette Jezierska Co-Founder and CEO The Future Fox

By 2040 people won’t need their own cars. Connected autonomous vehicles, mostly operating as pooled services in dense cities, shared and on-demand services, and fewer commuter trips, will decimate demand for single-occupancy vehicle travel by 2050, perhaps sooner. Tese changes mean that there will no longer be a need for car parking in cities, which currently consumes between 15% - 30% of all urban space in Europe [1]. What will happen to all of this valuable land once the cars are gone?

In high-footfall areas, more space will go to pedestrians, cyclists and public transportation systems. Te most valuable spots will be sold for redevelopment as new housing and commercial space. Some studies predict harmonious blends of new public green space, cycle parking and mid-rise housing funded by commercial investors and local authorities within regeneration projects.

However, in the residential neighbourhoods of today, proposals to simply relocate or reduce car parking allocation are some of the most hotly contested issues. Afer all, it is right outside of people’s front doors and there is still a tendency to treat the right to private car ownership and associated amenities as sacred. Luckily, the transition JEZIERSKA to healthier, more prosperous and egalitarian cities will start with — eliminating the need for parking altogether with a transformed mobility system, rather than changing people’s minds one at a time. Te transparency enabled by a tech-enhanced local democracy means that the debate over how to repurpose this land will be explosive and rapidly evolving towards action.

Te most significant urban infrastructure project of the 2020s will be the controlled release of this newly vacated asset in cities around the world. Tis mega project - the management of an unprecedented global land use transition across all major cities - will stimulate the creation of new policies to govern implementation and to help manage local and national stakeholders, while also providing the digital and practical tools to communities to lead change from the botom up. SAY GOODBYE TO PARKING SPACES SPACES PARKING TO GOODBYE SAY E-lockers, rewilding, local burial plots, play structures, drone landing sites 13 and micro power generation sites, community owned clean energy grids with back-up batery storage (if nuclear fusion doesn’t go mainstream) will all be available to serve the needs of urban residents by the end of the 2020s. Trough this decade, many residents will demand a dense network of green infrastructure to counter climate change, air pollution, flooding, and biodiversity loss. Tese demands could create new world-class streetscapes out of the dangerous concrete deserts that define many of today’s cities.

Communities will lead the way in the global land use transition Crowdfunding and neighbourhood-level decision-making will lead the repurposing of redundant road and parking space appropriate to the needs of each community. Maintenance of these newly productive spaces will fall on residents and businesses, aided by council-operated gardening and maintenance robots [2]. Te construction phase of the land use transition, for example, will see resident-activated diggers operating with council approval to accelerate delivery.

People love bridges, spaceports, machine learning and AI, so the urban land project won’t receive huge media or investor atention compared to other infrastructure megaprojects that kick-oﬀ this decade. Implementation will be gradual and uneven across cities. However, the urban land use transition coupled with a trend toward neighbourhood-level interaction will create a radically distinct urban infrastructure future.

By providing much more greenery and enabling decentralised services, it will make neighbourhoods more engaging and diverse. Local businesses will thrive. Tis will have a profound eﬀect on people’s quality of life, levels of social interaction, and access to opportunities that are based on and build on strong community networks. Te process will be a reversal of the gradual change of roads to prioritise motorised vehicles in the previous century that has led to lower physical activity levels and general health declines in urban populations across the UK and in other countries. Over £2bn in annual beneﬁts would accrue to London alone from higher physical activity levels [4], as well as savings from climate change mitigation and new economic activity. Tere is a global opportunity waiting to be seized by ambitious and commited local leaders. JEZIERSKA

Tis project will mark the turning point in a great urban revival, where — technology, people, regulation and market forces come together to recreate the space we use outside our homes, everyday. London could lead the way in the 2020s.

REFERENCES [1] htp://www.wsp-pb.com/Globaln/UK/WSPPB-Farrells-AV-whitepaper.pdf [2] htps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rorymackean/tertill-the-solar- powered-weeding-robot-for-home-g [3] htps://www.nesta.org.uk/archive-pages/future-londoners-key-trends/ E Krulila

Fredrik Hjelm Co-Founder and CEO VOI

For the last 75 years, our cities have been car-centric. If we are to achieve the 2030 climate goals for transport sector decarbonisation and foster a more sustainable urban development patern in line with targets set in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, experts agree we need to fundamentally rethink the role of private cars in our cities [1]. Te emergence of e-scooters gives us the chance to do just that and to create beautiful cityscapes that work for people, not cars.

Change is the only constant and our cities will continue to evolve . If we are to meaningfully improve the quality of urban living and reduce our impact on the environment, we need to see dramatic changes by 2030. When the science ﬁction cult hit Bladerunner was released in 1982 it depicted the world of 2019 as a dystopian cityscape where the rain is biblical and technology melds disturbingly with biology. Now that we are in 2020, it is something of a relief that this vision of the future has not become reality. But we have not yet deﬁned a more prosperous and equitable future for our cities.

Yet changes are happening even without clear planning on the part of local authorities. Autonomous cars are being developed and tested on city streets, while e-scooters and e-bikes are transforming urban mobility options that have been used for the past century. Hybrid cars and electric vehicles are rapidly becoming a realistic HJELM

— option for families on ordinary incomes through tech-enable car sharing options.

When we think about the cities of the future and how they will look, we should remember that the motor car is a relative newcomer to our urban areas. Routes that are now dominated by multi-lane highways were once tramways and bridleways for much slower horses and carriages. As we plan for and create the urban systems and cities that our children will grow up in, we should think about reducing the fossil-fuels we use to move around, but also the valuable space that the ﬂeet of private motor vehicles takes up.

Public space in cities is an increasingly scarce commodity and at the same time is one of our most valuable shared resources. Yet we devote far too much of it at all times to cars. In most European cities around 15%-30% of all space in the city is taken up by parking. Ofen these are empty parking spaces as cars are circulating and most cities have a massive over provision of parking. London is a good example of this, with RETHINKING MICROMOBILITY FOR 2030 RETHINKING MICROMOBILITY FOR 15 the Royal Automobile Club estimating 6.8 million parking spaces across the city [2]. With plenty of e-bikes and e-scooters options now available, there is less need for every household to buy and park a car. Tis has implications for on-road emissions and through the supply chain. Since e-scooters are a shared transport mode, the impact of their manufacture is innately lower than that of individuals who buy their own motor vehicles for personal use.

Where E-scooters replace private cars and taxi journeys, they dramatically reduce traﬃc volumes on city streets. Traﬃc removal and a systematic modal shif away from private car use opens up other possibilities: car parks can be redeveloped into useful buildings. Street parking can be replanted or repurposed as public green spaces, cycle lanes or running tracks..

To make this micro-mobility transition work in London and other European cities, Voi wants to see e-scooters more closely integrated with public transport. Afer a year of operating across Europe, we are convinced that regulation is necessary to make the most of this new form of transport which is ideally suited for the ﬁrst and last mile of most journeys. Proactive regulation of micromobility platforms is required to create equal terms for competition that ensures micro mobility becomes accessible to everyone, without becoming a nuisance to urban residents. For the 2020s, we predict cities with less noise, dramatically fewer cars and more green areas and trees where cycle lanes and scooter tracks run alongside pedestrianised areas and running zones. Tis land use transition is already happening in Oslo, Edinburgh and other cities.

To make this vision a reality in London and other European cities, we are urging councillors and city planners to create space for e-scooters to park and to charge at the planning stage of new developments. At the same time as we create new physical space for e-scooters from redundant roads and car parking, technology can help to guide people’s behaviour by teaching them to ride safely, obliging them to slow down in some areas and incentivising them to park in a respectful manner .

At Voi, we want to shape the cities of the future. If well managed and regulated, shared micromobility can strengthen inclusive and alternative mobility networks. In 38 cities across Europe, e-scooters have already brought excitement and freedom to users. If our vision of the future of mobility is to work, it must work for all residents and also be exhilarating and fun. HJELM — Kat Jayne Kat © Image

REFERENCES [1] Metz (2012) ‘Future of Cities: beyond Peak Car: ‘htps://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/atachment_data/ﬁle/452923/future-cities-peak-car.pdf [2] RAC (2012) ‘Spaced Out: perspectives on parking policy:’ htps://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_

foundation/content/downloadables/spaced_out-bates_leibling-jul12.pdf 2030 RETHINKING MICROMOBILITY FOR 16 MAKING CITIES FIT FOR THE FUTURE

Sheila Watson Deputy Director FIA Foundation

Ask a city dweller about their home and they will describe the elements that make their environment unique: a stunning view from the highest points, the river that freezes every winter, the wind that blows in from the sea. Perhaps the food, music, or culture that permeates their neighbourhood.

Less likely is for them to share a glowing description of the public transport system. For a tourist, a black cab in London, a tuk-tuk in Bangkok or a Vespa in Rome may seem iconic, a distinctive part of these cities’ look and feel. For residents, these internal combustion engine vehicles are the primary cause of increasingly dirtier air, black lungs, unexplained breathing issues, learning disabilities and even premature death [1]. Te type and volume of internal combustion engine vehicles significantly impact on the degree of air pollution , but, perhaps more surprisingly, so does the geography of a city. Each city’s transport fleet will produce different levels of emissions linked to unique environmental factors from elevation to temperature.

Currently, just 12% of all cities have air which complies with World Health Organisation standards, and an estimated 3.7 million people, mainly in urban areas, die each year as a result of acute outdoor air pollution, mostly caused by motor vehicle emissions.

Cities across the world are working towards emissions-free spaces, restricting both the volume and type of cars on their streets. Private cars, however, are only part of the issue; WATSON

— taxis, motorcycles and public transport all make significant contributions to the air quality problem and will remain essential for the future functioning of our cities. So how can these cities best understand their motor vehicle congestion and emissions challenges and develop policies that both reduce vehicle numbers and have a real impact on air quality? Remote sensing of real-world emissions may well be the answer for planning the future of low-traffic and traffic-free city centres.

It’s not just old or unregulated vehicles that are making big contributions to the dirty air crisis in our cities: the Dieselgate scandal revealed that VW and, subsequently, many other car manufacturers used sofware to control emissions of diesel vehicles to pass laboratory tests, while under normal driving conditions these controls were disabled, allowing cars to spew unregulated emissions into the environment. Some 37,000 deaths, mainly in Europe, are directly atributable to the NOx emissions caused by this difference alone [2]. MAKING CITIES FIT FOR THE FUTURE MAKING CITIES FIT FOR Te gap between a sample vehicle’s emissions in a laboratory and real-world emissions are vast. Dubbed by 17 Te Guardian as an ‘uncheatable’ test, remote sensing technology can capture the emissions of vehicles in urban environments, building up a data set to accurately assess the emissions of vehicle families in cities. Te Real Urban Emissions Initiative (TRUE) was formed to fill this knowledge gap by ranking vehicles based on their real-world nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions and is a partnership of the FIA Foundation and the International Council on Clean Transportation [3]. Te benefits of using remote-sensing are threefold: as a general litmus test to indicate where there are significant fleet emissions risks; to address city-specific fleet challenges and changes; and to identify environmental variants.

Europe-wide testing collected over a number of years showed many of the newer diesel models ﬂouted their speciﬁc emissions standards, some by up to 18 times. While clearly an issue for European cities, it is also a cause for concern for other cities seeing an increase in diesel vehicles, or expecting to see these cars later in their lifecycles through the secondhand market – in regions such as Eastern Europe and Africa – posing long-term future risks.

Te fleets within each city pose challenges in terms of the general mix of personal vehicles like cars alongside two- and three-wheelers, as well as city-specific vehicles and the emissions from public transportation, which becomes an ever more significant element of fleets as cities push towards more sustainable models. Two and three-wheelers make-up to 30% of total motorised vehicles worldwide, but in many middle and low-income cities their share is much higher, up to 90%, and they are ofen cited as a low space, low emission solution to many urban challenges. However, TRUE’s remote-sensing in Paris showed, for the first time, that fuel-specific emissions (emissions per gram of fuel used) are far higher than previously thought, contradicting received knowledge.

Testing in London revealed that the city’s iconic black cabs were producing emissions up to 30 times higher than petrol cars of the same age, but that the average bus fleet NOX emissions have fallen by 65% in the past five years. Tese results highlighted areas for policy intervention, which were subsequently acted on by the Mayor of London to expedite the shif to zero-emissions black cabs through greater investment, as well showcasing the positive impact of retrofiting buses can have on emissions levels.

Te final impact of real-world testing is that it highlights the impact of environmental variables. Elevation, humidity and temperature all have a significant impact on the emissions of vehicles and will create a specific set of circumstances unique to each environment. As cities face more seasonal weather extremes due to the climate crisis, policies need to be created for both the day-to-day and the exceptional. In Paris, for example, temperatures exceeded 30 ˚C on an unprecedented 20 days in summer 2019, during which time the emissions from newer diesel car models rose by up to 30%. If heat island cities, like Paris, are to regularly WATSON reach these extremes in temperature, city policies may need to have built-in protocols for the hotest days to — protect citizens from the extreme combined impact of high temperatures and high air pollution.

Cities are ﬁnally tackling their air quality challenges, but to do so they must ﬁrst understand what those challenges are. Cities will always need transport, and the road to an emissions-free world is long, but remote sensing in every city can help shape the policies that can have an immediate impact to give all citizens the clean air they deserve.

REFERENCES [1] htp://ellaroberta.org/about-ella/ [2] ‘5,000 deaths annually from Dieselgate in Europe’ (2017): htps://www.sciencedaily.com/ releases/2017/09/170918093337.htm [3] htps://www.trueinitiative.org/ MAKING CITIES FIT FOR THE FUTURE MAKING CITIES FIT FOR 18 EDINBURGH’S CITY CENTRE TRANSFORMATION STRATEGY

Daisy Narayanan Director of Urbanism Sustrans

In Edinburgh we are in the process of reshaping a living, breathing and incredibly magical and successful city through the 2020s. Tere is so much to value in this unique, historic capital - the closes, the medieval streets of its world heritage centre, the bus drivers who spread their cheer, its human scale and diversity. We have a lively city centre with 26,000 residents and that’s something we need to cherish and preserve this through the process of transformation. Like other cities across the UK and around the world, we face significant challenges in removing traffic. Edinburgh is growing, with a rapidly increasing population increasing demands on all public services and a finite amount of public space. Yet motor vehicle traffic continues to dominate our streets with the associated congestion and poor air quality posing significant issues for all residents and visitors to the city. As Edinburgh’s streetscape evolves and the city’s population increases, there is a real need for consistent, high- quality street design which minimises street cluter and vehicular traffic and ensures NARAYANAN that the city remains accessible for everyone. —

Te status quo is not an option for Edinburgh Te City Centre Transformation project was set up to address these issues with a holistic, collaborative place-based approach. Te approach seeks to put people at the very heart of the city’s public realm. Equality is enshrined in our guiding principles and transport and land use changes are twin enablers of a more equal city. Te strategy will deliver car-free streets in the core of Old Town, a pedestrian-priority zone, a free city centre electric hopper bus and a new walking and cycling bridge. It will also provide four lifs to help with vertical connections and other fundamental interventions like a comprehensive operations plan, benches, greening and wider pavements.

Tis isn’t just about car-free areas or showing globally significant leadership on systematic traffic removal. It is also about what happens in these spaces when you take traffic away. Tey become – places where music, art, theatre and business thrive. As Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris and former C40 Cities Chair has highlighted, once traffic is removed, streets “become places where a parent can safely let go of their child’s hand when they cross a street.” EDINBURGHS CITY CENTRE TRANSFORMATION STRATEGY STRATEGY EDINBURGHS CITY CENTRE TRANSFORMATION 19 Danila Giancipoli © Image

Here in Edinburgh, we are at the beginning of a ten-year journey toward delivering this vision. As we progress towards a safer, healthier, and happier city, we want to demonstrate that our plans are more than just a document gaining dust on a shelf. Te first tangible outcome of our work so far has had us join the global Open Streets movement in May of 2019. Tis has meant that on the first Sunday of every month, as part of an 18-month trial, thirteen streets in the historic Old Town have been closed to traffic and opened up to people. Every three months we will review where we are, what we are hearing from residents, businesses and visitors and consider areas for improvement. Ultimately, this learning will feed back into the wider city centre strategy.

Edinburgh is familiar with removing traﬃc from its streets, including during the summer festival season, Hogmanay celebrations and for daily School Streets. What

is diﬀerent about Open Streets is the programme’s regularity, leting people get used NARAYANAN to quieter streets and allowing for a robust monitoring and evaluation process. And — the Open Streets process isn’t just events-focused - there is no need to commission a Circus in the streets. Rather, it is community-led and shaped by residents and community organisations who want to use the streets as the important public spaces they can be. Lastly, Open Streets focusses on liveability. Calm, quiet streets free from noise and air pollution are as important for residents as streets where activities like play, music and dance happen.

From our first Open Streets event onwards, we’ve had broad support from community members, businesses and visitors, but we have also been careful to listen to concerns as we continue to deliver the programme. Improvements were made for the second and third Open Streets days based on feedback from residents, businesses and other interested parties. It is still early days but we are confident that Edinburgh is making huge strides forward. We are on our way to delivering a 10-year plan to transform our city centre, creating a more liveable, active and healthy environment, puting people back at its very heart to the benefit of generations to come. We believe that our experience can inspire other national capitals and growing cities in the United Kingdom and around the world to follow Edinburgh’s lead and go traffic-free. EDINBURGHS CITY CENTRE TRANSFORMATION STRATEGY STRATEGY EDINBURGHS CITY CENTRE TRANSFORMATION 20 OSLO: CAR FREE CITY 2030

Kristine Solgaard Car Free Liveability Programme Manager City of Oslo

Sigurd Oland Nedrelid City of Oslo

Oslo’s 2030 car free city goal is for a greener, more liveable and inclusive city, with more space for city life, cultural expression and social interaction. We will get there by puting people ﬁrst in all decision-making processes. A scarce resource like urban land must be used more eﬃciently in order to promote our shared social and environmental goals. Driving and parking consume space, making it unavailable for more economically productive uses, and impede walking and cycling. By 2030 more of this space will be opened up to new users, prioritising pedestrians, cyclists, children and the elderly.

If our streets are equally safe for 8 and 80 year-olds , then they are safe and ready to be used by all residents and visitors to the city . Our streets are a network that is greater than the sum of its parts. Tis means that it is important to work towards a coherent and closely connected network of urban spaces designed for the young and old, and everyone in between.

Research tells us that people don’t walk or cycle only because it is practical. It must also be stimulating and pleasant. Te car-free city should be signiﬁcantly greener to encourage more active travel. Trees might be considered as too expensive to maintain in the brave new era of austerity, but they are more than simply expensive street ornaments. Trees and greenery stimulate walking, cycling and the desire to spend time in public spaces. Trees also clean the air, increase urban biodiversity, and reduce the

SOLGAARD, NEDRELID SOLGAARD, severity and duration of ﬂooding, which we know will strike us harder in the coming — years. Trees are proven to reduce mental health problems, stress, noise, dust and the challenge of urban heat islands.

Tere is global consensus that cycling must be made safer and more comfortable as modes of transport in cities. Removing traffic creates space to achieve this. Converting on-street parking space to bike lanes is a fast and efficient first step towards boosting modal share for cycling across all cities. Oslo’s approach to ‘cycling streets’ is based on a belief that shared spaces between vehicles and cyclists are safe for cyclists if traffic is minimised and speed limits are low. and leave more room for OSLO CAR FREE CITY 2030 OSLO pavements. In addition, implementing financial support schemes for electric and 21 cargo bicycles, and investing in city bike-sharing systems, can stimulate cycling among businesses and citizens.

Public spaces must also be upgraded generally, with an emphasis on basic needs, quality and comfort for all. Residents and visitors to a city shouldn’t have to pay to get a comfortable place to sit down. An inclusive scheme for investing in comfortable benches, public toilets, drinking fountains, ﬁtness elements and playgrounds are all a part of Oslo’s transition process. As loneliness is a problem in many cities, investing in places for expression, social interaction and leisure is important, especially in dense cities. Support schemes and spaces for art and culture helps support civic life in public space.

Restrictions on motor vehicle traﬃc can be introduced gradually and still be eﬀective. Tis allows for a smoother process where necessary adjustments can happen along the way. Instead of implementing a completely vehicle-free city centre in a single step, Oslo chose to start by reducing the unnecessary use of private cars. Even with this incrementalist approach, some people and groups remain relianton car use, and public transport is crucial for mobility. Reducing unnecessary vehicles, give more space to those depending on the car, like disabled people, delivery companies and crafsmen.

Te technology required to achieve this land use and mobility transition is already here. By 2030, all public transport and private vehicles will be zero emissions, with car-sharing systems implemented in all cities. New technological advances in last mile delivery systems, and the introduction of ﬂexible and autonomous public transport, such as self-driving pick-up based systems for vulnerable groups like the disabled and elderly, will all become available through the next decade.

Improving urban liveability by removing traﬃc will not only be design-led, but will be co-created in cooperation with businesses, community organisations and residents. Te process of transforming the city requires curiosity and a willingness to explore new ideas along the way. At the end of the day, handing more space back to residents and visitors should empower people to become producers of thriving shared spaces, innovating and creating their own street culture. SOLGAARD, NEDRELID SOLGAARD, — Tobias Bjorkli Tobias © Image CAR FREE CITY 2030 OSLO 22 UNDERSTANDING THE STREETS OF PUEBLA, MEXICO

Giovanni Zayas Active mobility consultant

As with many great cities in Latin America and Europe, Puebla’s magniﬁcent city centre oﬀers a glimpse of its vast history and rich culture. Residents and visitors to the city from all walks of life enjoy museums, restaurants, cafés, bookshops, parks, churches, food carts amongst many other institutions and amenities that shape the city’s unique culture. Founded in 1531, it is now Mexico’s fourth largest city with a metro population of 3.2 million. As the city continues to expand, car-oriented urban planning risks limiting democratic access to the city for residents and hindering the quality of the urban experience for residents and visitors.

Te eﬀects of car-centric transport policies in Puebla and other cities are well-documented: traﬃc congestion dampens economic competitiveness and productivity, road safety and respiratory risks damage economic output, cardiovascular and mental health takes a toll, and the destruction of public realm associated with private cars threatens to tear apart the historical urban fabric of cities across the globe. In response to these challenges, societies are batling to reverse the ZAYAS private car-led land use and transport system that was entrenched through the 20th — century. Overturning almost a century of private motorised transport infrastructure and associated economic incentives and marketing is a challenge shared by Puebla and other cities.

Metro Puebla has a relatively low car mode share with just 16% of all trips by private automobile. Yet in spite of public transport and walking dominating the modal share across the city, private cars still dominate most of our city’s road space and consume the lion’s share of the infrastructure budget. Even in the historical centre which is designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, parked cars obstruct beautiful building façades and speeding cars endanger the lives of cyclists and pedestrians. Children and the elderly are particularly at risk from traﬃc. Noise and air pollution from running engines and a cacophony of blaring horns smothers the natural soundtrack of urban life. Puebla’s city centre, dating back to the 1530s when the Spanish sought to secure the trade route between Mexico City and the port of Veracruz, represents a great opportunity to show how car-free city centres can help shape a more sustainable urban future across the Americas and around the world. Global leadership could start at home. UNDERSANDING THE STREETS OF PUEBLA, MEXICO UNDERSANDING THE STREETS 23 Hashim Rogers © Image

A fully pedestrianised section of Cinco de Mayo street already provides a glimpse of what the future could hold for Puebla. Te street is frequently bustling with vendors, music, street food and people in their thousands out enjoying the public space. Callejón de Los Sapos, a local access street lined with antique shops and cafés, boasts colourful buildings, lots of space for walking and a low-stress, low-traﬃc environment. Te Vía Recreativa, a weekly 4km circuit of car-free streets that functions as a play area, cultural space and sports facilities, opens up an expanse for children to play, families to enjoy, dogs to be walked as well as new spaces for cyclists to train. Once a month, the city centre’s smaller traﬃc-free circuit connects with a larger 15km network of car-free streets in other neighbourhoods and municipalities in the wider Puebla metro area.

Successive Puebla city administrations have considered plans to increase permanent car-free areas in the centre. Tese initiatives have been met with opposition by some residents and businesses who are instinctively resistant to any restrictions on car parking and access. Tis is a universal experience for city’s seeking to lead change. Te instinctive resistance to change in Puebla is similar ZAYAS to what happens in other bustling cities from London to Lagos with car-centric planning traditions. —

In spite of inertia, a range of pilot projects in Puebla’s centre have confirmed the overwhelming evidence regarding the benefits of limiting car access to urban areas with high commercial activity and high pedestrian traffic. Traffic removal immediately lowers noise and air pollution, reduces road safety-related risks and boosts sales for small businesses. Te benefits of pedestrianisation and traffic removal for businesses mean that Puebla small business owners and residents have joined transport activists and academic voices in demanding the definitive implementation of the car-free initiatives across the city. In addition to private automobile access restrictions, car-free initiatives in Puebla’s centre proposals for the 2020s could also focus on providing bicycle-powered delivery systems, increasing bicycle parking and bicycle through traffic on certain streets, adding green space and public seating and protecting the diversity and affordability of residential and commercial spaces and retail options.

As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Puebla’s historical city centre is uniquely positioned to lead a transition to traﬃc-free city centres in the Americas. Where Puebla leads the way, Mexico City, Manhatan and Toronto could follow. With the world geting serious about the transition to net zero emissions across urban transport and land use, the timing is perfect for Puebla to lead. A traﬃc -free city centre for Puebla should be a goal we can all celebrate by 2030. UNDERSANDING THE STREETS OF PUEBLA, MEXICO UNDERSANDING THE STREETS 24 POSTCARD FROM THE FUTURE LAGOS 2030

Kingsley Iweka Founder, Car Free Day Lagos Author, Blogger and Communications consultant

In time for the 70th anniversary of Nigerian independence in 2030, Lagosians are celebrating a traffic-free Lagos Island. Te Lagos government began working with residents and businesses on Lagos Island to systematically remove traffic early in the 2020s, following the city’s first Car Free Day. Te results have made the economic hub of West Africa and mega-city of 40 million a genuinely pleasant place to live. Choking traffic was replaced with a world-class subway and electric trolley bus system. In just a decade, the city has become a model for other mega cities and their smaller peers to follow. For low-lying cities like Jakarta, Manila and Miami, Lagos has become a model of more climate secure zero emissions urban transport and land use planning. Permanent traffic jams and honking horns on the Carter Bridge, the Eko Bridge and the Tird Mainland Bridge have been replaced with the quiet of an all-electric public transport fleet and the soothing sound of the city’s rivers and canals. Visitors from London and New York would visit through the 2020s to learn how their cities could learn from Lagos’s leadership on systematic traffic removal.

Free from motor vehicle traﬃc, residents of Oniru cycle and walk to work in Ajose Adeogun and other areas of Victoria Island along dedicated bicycle paths and widened pedestrian boulevards planted with a stunning array of local ﬂowers and food crops. Te

IWEKA subway system moves millions of passengers a day - more than any

— other city in the world - quietly under their feet. Te only remaining road space dedicated to vehicle traffic is reserved for electric commercial delivery vehicles. Te vast majority of commercial deliveries are done with e-tricycles or electric cargo boats manufactured on the mainland. LAGOS 2030 LAGOS 25 Lagosians and visitors to the metropolis walk to Oniru beach without having to worry about cars and other vehicles along Ligali Ayorinde leading up to the entrance of the beach. With a modest reallocation of space away from private cars to people walking and cycling, the city was transformed into a healthier, safer, and more prosperous place. Once private cars were officially removed from Lagos Island in 2022, residents and visitors to the city couldn’t imagine going back to the dangerous, polluted and stressful status quo of Lagos traffic jams.

Te backbone of traﬃc-free Lagos is the new public transport system, with a new metro line running from Ojota on Ikorodu Road all the way to Ahmadu Bello Way. Another metro line runs from Murtala Mohammed Airport with major stops along the Oshodi-Apapa expressway and connects to the metro line from Ojota to Ahmadu Bello Way on Victoria Island.

Beginning in the early 2020s, Force Road in Onikan leading up to Tafawa Balewa Square was transformed into a play zone for children and adults. Lagos’ architects and urban designers had been inspired by Oslo’s pedestrianised town centre and playstreet for children and adults. Tafawa Balewa Square was the ﬁrst of many land conversions from parking space and roads to new public parks, playgrounds and aﬀordable housing that gathered pace through the decade.

Alongside the systematic removal of cars from the city centre, the other major project for the 2020s was opening up the canal systems running across Lagos Island, Victoria Island and the into the mainland. Teams of youth were employed to clear the canals and to manage the reintroduction of local wildlife and ﬁsh stocks. Lagos State-operated electric ferries move people around quietly and quickly across the mega-city. Residents and visitors entering Victoria Island get there via waterways that stretch as far as Ikorodu, Badagry and Epe. Coming from Lekki takes just a few minutes on a new metro line connecting Victoria Island to the rest of the sprawling metropolis. Lagos in 2030 is an exceptional city. IWEKA — Zoohaus Architects Zoohaus & Nle © Image 2030 LAGOS 26 POSTCARD FROM THE FUTURE VANCOUVER 2030

Hamish Stewart Co-Founder London Car Free Day

Vancouver. Te self-professed ‘Greenest City in the World’ ﬁnally lived up to its reputation afer a decade of unprecedented action and political upheaval through the 2020s. By 2030, the city’s dream had come true with a pedestrianised downtown peninsula running from Main Street all the way to the Lions Gate Bridge. Access into the downtown across the Lions Gate, Burrard Street, and Oak Street bridges was via hydrogen powered buses and tram cars with the rest of the bridge paving opened up for zero emissions commercial freight vehicles, cycling, walking and small businesses. Beginning in 2022, the bridges were transformed with landscaping and planting, marking a dramatic entry into what rapidly became one of the world’s most celebrated traﬃc-free town centres.

Global landscape architecture practices bid to transition each of the iconic bridges into a pedestrian and bus corridor, planted with native species. Te Squamish Nation’s redevelopment of the lands west of Burrard Street Bridge into a nature park around a high-rise residential block powered with geothermal energy won design prizes from around the world. Te bridges and the pedestrianised downtown core quickly set an international standard for landscape architecture and the rewilding of cities. By 2030 the deﬁnition of “Vancouverism” had shifed from meaning empty glass box luxury investment condos to referring to the city’s uniquely ambitious approach to traﬃc removal, zero emissions land use and energy positive buildings. STEWART — VANCOUVER 2030 VANCOUVER 27

Stanley Park was gracefully extended across the downtown peninsula with tramcar and pedestrian corridors snaking through green verges. Te pedestrianisation of the downtown peninsula of 8km2 had a knock-on eﬀect on the neighbours, with Surrey, Richmond, Burnaby and other metro cities following Vancouver’s lead. Green corridors were created across the city, replacing redundant road access. All laneways were converted to porous green parkland. Land value capture helped to ﬁnance the buildout of a high- speed passenger rail network connecting the downtown core to the Fraser Valley and beyond.

Te land use change was biterly fought over in 2020 but was the denouement of a land claims setlement with a consortium of First Nations. In the end the consortium’s conditions for holding the downtown peninsula in trust for the benefit of all residents was systematic traffic removal, rewilding, and the introduction of local hydrogen buses and a regional zero emissions high-speed rail system. With a litle help from Taiwanese and Hong Kong financiers, the project was completed in record time, connecting Vancouver with a high speed train to Los Angeles in time for the 2028 summer Olympics. .

In 2030, coastal mountains rise in the distance from an implausibly thick forest of fully occupied residential towers. Hong Kong and Tiawanese governments in exile have made the city a lively and STEWART — more dynamic place. High-speed rail links extend east all the way to Calgary and south down to Los Angeles. Built by a German- Taiwanese consortium and ﬁnanced by Hong Kong investors and a syndicate of Canadian public pension funds, the rail system Lukas Kloeppel Lukas

Hamish Stewart Co-Founder London Car Free Day

No one expected that Manhatan would distinguish itself as the world’s greatest traffic-free urban peninsula by 2030. Mumbai was not far behind, but the property investors who run New York City were able to move faster than their global peers amidst the chaos of the US civil war. As lower Manhatan continued to densify and the UN offices expanded through a decade of conflict in the 2020s, Manhatan had no other choice but to open up the streets for people. With New York State’s secession from the Union in the mid-2020s, the pace of the land use transition accelerated. Removing motor vehicle traffic from the bridges into Manhatan was the most difficult phase of the land use transition. But once the bridges were mostly pedestrianised with lanes reserved only for electric and hydrogen- powered buses, pedestrian and cycle access, land conversion on the peninsula gathered pace.

An enormous storm that made Hurricane Sandy look like a blustery day flooded much of the city in 2021, forcing a complete rethink of climate resilience. New York state’s response to coronavirus and the 2021 hurricane included a transition to porous surfaces and more natural drainage in coastal cities throughout the region. Te city had to raise a great deal of new capital to rebuild. Luckily, municipal finances had been boosted with the legalisation and taxation of cannabis production and sale. Almost overnight, New York had become the largest distribution and retail site for cannabis into the United States. Tis created a public finance stream that was directed STEWART

— into climate resilience, job creation and the construction of world- class aﬀordable housing for the city’s booming global population. NEW YORK 2030 NEW YORK 29 Jan Kroon Jan Kroon © Image

Te dedication of bridges for public transport and commercial freight freed up around 2 million parking spaces across the city for conversion to new public greenspace [1]. Much of the 40% of Manhatan currently devoted to roads was then made available through public auctions for redevelopment as aﬀordable housing, new commercial space and public green space. Land value capture through this process enabled the Mayor of New York to ﬁnance homes for the burgeoning population of twelve million.

High-speed rail connections south to Washington, DC, helped to maintain vital diplomatic relations while the city’s commercial future was supported with links to a network of cities along the highspeed line’s northern branch reaching up to Boston, Toronto, and Montreal. Te integration of a high-speed rail network had been the main driver of zero emissions growth and a period of historically unprecedented economic and cultural ﬂourishing in the northeast.

REFERENCE [1] htps://www.mba.org/2018-press-releases/july/riha-releases-new- report-quantiﬁed-parking-comprehensive-parking-inventories-for-ﬁve- major-us-cities, at 10. STEWART — NE YORK 2030 NE YORK 30 POSTCARD FROM THE FUTURE MILAN 2030

Marco Picardi Co-Founder London Car Free Day

Sirine launched herself into the cool waters of Via Fatebenefratelli, as she did every lunch break during the humid summer months. Tis had become a refreshing ritual and a daily refuge from a burning summer sun that turned the place into a greenhouse when the city was at peak humidity.

City centre open water swimming, like Sirine’s lunch time plunges, were one of the many advantages of the daylighted navigli - the system of navigable and interconnected canals around Milan. Since the launch of the city’s 2030 masterplan in the early 2020s, over 25km of canals that had been tarmacked over in the 20th century had been daylighted. Te result was a vast network of clean water accessible to all for public transport, swimming, sailing and ﬁshing. Tis continuous body of water ﬂowed through the city alongside new native planting and landscaped boulevards at street level that created an ecosystem of rewilded public spaces throughout the city. Tis led many locals to joke that the city’s nickname, Milano da bere (‘Milan to drink’), was now more appropriate for describing the doves and swifs drinking from the navigli rather than the commuters sipping their aperitivo before the electric tram ride home.

Over a decade earlier, the city began transforming its public spaces through piazze aperte, a tactical urbanism initiative to restore suburban public spaces swallowed up by anarchic parking as new public squares. Sirine had been involved in the ﬁrst round of these as a teenager, helping to reanimate Piazza Angilberto in her

PICARDI neighbourhood by painting the road surface with bright colours to — prepare for World Car Free Day. She didn’t realise it then, but the experience of preparing for Car Free Day changed her life. Trough the process of transforming Piazza Angilberto, she had an epiphany about the incredible opportunity to do more with the spaces

MILAN 2030 between Milan’s buildings. Sirine spent many subsequent car free days on a stall helping run her mum make the secret family recipe 31 for beghrir and honey, and at university she joined the boats club, sailing from her student halls in Pavia through central Milan’s newly re-opened fossa canal, and onto Gorgonzola of gorging on the world famous blue cheese.

It was during the record breaking summer temperatures of 2022 that Sirine signed the petition to depave 50% of central Milan. Te piazze aperte initiative had set a precedent, and she realised that more needed to be done to maintain the liveability of the city. Milan’s political leaders accepted the urgency of the petition. Te city drew on the expertise developed during the Scali Milano project - an initiative run by the state rail company to establish new parks in the city’s disused rail depots - to roll out new planting and agriculture initiatives in the centre’s street network. Te canal daylighting programme was accelerated, the new circle line metro was delivered with a garden for each station, and Milan was proud to feed the athletes of the 2026 winter Olympic games entirely with produce grown from streets that less than a decade ago operated as movement corridors for cars and empty tarmac.

As Sirine reemerged from her lunchtime swim, lying to dry off on Via Fatebenefratelli’s grassy bank, she flashed back to her childhood. Tat constant hum of cars, long replaced by the buzzing of bees pollinating the wildflowers behind her, and the soothing slow naviglio flow in front of contrasting the traffic-induced freneticism of the school gates. Unimaginable possibilities, she thought gathering her things to return to the office, maybe her boss could agree to a three hour work day afer all…! PICARDI — Neemias Seara © Image MILAN 2030 32 POSTCARD FROM THE FUTURE ATHENS 2030

Marco Picardi Co-Founder London Car Free Day

‘Hey Stathi, check this out…’

‘Looks like a human hellscape… Or maybe a robotic paradise?’

‘No malaka! It’s my old university thesis project about the city, ATHENS-2030’

‘Was designing life on Mars passé, so you ﬂipped it – an alien invasion! Hashtag edgy student vibez!!’

‘Ela, no come on – back then everyone thought autonomous drones and vehicles would be the answer to our city streets …’

‘Wow, you really ﬁlled out Plaka’s skies with ﬂying objects - hashtag apocalyptic architecture, haha’

‘Halara Stathi, diﬀerent times diﬀerent everything, back then Pedion Tou Areos was considered a park to avoid rather than enjoy’

‘True say, my mum used to freak out if I went there’

‘Imagine if the city had followed my vision…’

‘.. all roofops and courtyards would be take-oﬀ and landing strips, and no one would be able to cross the street - telia - it would be like

PICARDI living on the Venizelos airport runway!’ — ‘Haha, maybe, but it could have looked cool’

‘Cool looking but with a deafening sound - to be honest I quite like it that our kids can play in courtyards without armies of helicopter

ATHENS 2030 ATHENS landing on their heads’ 33 ‘Daxi - we shouldn’t take it for granted that the courtyards are green and accessible - before the akaliptos act, so many buildings internal spaces were abandoned and hard surfaces’

‘Plus, no one really walked or cycled back then’

‘Imagine if they hadn’t ﬁnished the Panepistimiou pedestrianisation and rolled it out throughout Atica’

‘Yeah for a futurist thesis, your’s really sucked at predicting the future, haha’

‘Come on Malaka! We all kind of believed tech would solve everything, even our streets’

‘Robots dreaming of electric sheep, and architecture students dreaming of robot invasions’

‘Diﬀerent times, Stathi, Kiﬁssia felt like the only area that had trees in it’

‘Now everywhere is a verdant Kiﬁssia Green, haha’

‘... And centre was the only spot for street art’

‘Yeah, shameful lack of art in your project - it’s basically the opposite of happened’

‘Stathi, the project was before those local neighbourhood artist residencies changed the feeling of so many public spaces everywhere in Atica’

‘I reckon someone from the municipality must’ve looked at the grey ATHENA-2030 vision, freaked out and decided to liberate the city from your horror show ... maybe in a weird way we should thank you!’

‘Come on malaka, back then no one would have predicted that self-driving drones and cars would be limited inter-city travel’

‘… true you were too busy bringing your inter- galactical nightmare to the world’s cradles of deep thought’ PICARDI —

‘Still I wouldn’t have minded if ATHENA-2030 happened’ PIxabay © ‘If it did, I’d have long moved to Mars’ Image 2030 ATHENS 34 POSTCARD FROM THE FUTURE LONDON 2030

Marco Picardi and Hamish Stewart Co-Founders London Car Free Day

People think that London changed with the creation of the city- wide Zero Emissions Zone (ZEZ) in 2022, but the story is more complicated. A year earlier in 2021, UN-HABITAT, the United Nation’s urban built environment arm, had stated that all new master plans should be zero emissions to uphold the principle of the right to a healthy environment [1], but no ‘Old World’ city had yet adopted it as oﬃcial policy. So it was surprising to many that the ﬁrst great city to transform its air quality overnight would be the Big Smoke. Te city’s rapid transition to zero emissions-only vehicles and a pedestrianised Square Mile set a global precedent for ambitious action in cities around the world.

Public pressure had been building in the city for a while. Transport for London (TfL)’s decision to make Hammersmith Bridge into a permanent garden bridge dedicated to walking and cycling following the 2020 mayoral elections was the moment that longtime observers identified as the turning point for the healthy city movement. Within months, the nearby Chiswick car boot sale had relocated to the bridge and replaced cars with cargo bikes, becoming the first of many markets and high streets across London to make the switch to zero emissions logistics systems. People flocked to this part of the Tames, and began demanding the roll out of a continuous pedestrianised space running the length of the river.

Work through the 2020s turned the Tames Path into a truly world- class linnear park for all Londoners to enjoy. Te Path and other walking routes around London were made traﬃc-free, and these

PICARDI, STEWART routes became a showcase of British landscape architecture and

— horticultural prowess, overshadowing the Chelsea Flower Show, and accessible to all residents. Weekly car free days were declared by TfL at town centres across the city in partnership with London Councils. Soon afer TfL’s bold show of leadership, the Greater London LONDON 2030 LONDON Authority with Play England declared the city to be the world’s first 35 Play City with hundreds of traffic-free town centres. London was the first city in the world where every street could be opened by local communities for activities without incurring road closure fees. Te longest play street to be activated for play on a permanent basis was the Westway A40, a three-mile elevated flyover in west London. Te Westway’s conversion into a new community park followed a month- long programme of activities during the 2021 school holidays.

With a litle motivation and planning, TfL were able to transform the lives of residents who had previously relied on car travel with the biggest public transport expansion since the tube’s inception in the nineteenth century. Tis transformative investment in public transport was most marked in south London and the outer boroughs. As TfL took over operation of all suburban rail lines, they increased the frequency of trains ﬁve fold, and the resurrection of the Cross River Tram connecting Peckham to Camden spawned a revival of electric tram routes across the city to plug key accessibility gaps in the underground system. Te conversion of the Tames ferry boats to an all electric ﬂeet and its integration into the TfL network was another huge leap for the city’s integrated zero emissions transport system.

Te streets were also transformed in this period with the roll out of Healthy Streets 2.0 - a genuinely ambitious, action-oriented agenda that inspired cities around the world to do the same. An important part of this process through the 2020s was giving new life to ideas that had been shelved in previous years. Te capital’s ancient network of drovers roads, used to transport livestock were repurposed as heritage landscape trails providing green connectivity throughout London, and parks were connected by greenway wildlife corridors so that each green space in the city could be reached on foot via a landscaped traﬃc-free route.

Te UK’s property developers were still calling London the greenest city in the world, and for once this developer-speak appeared to be in line with reality. A key precursor to the ZEZ, was the Zero Emission Pledge that all councils and major property developers signed in mid- 2020, commiting them to ensure that their construction and delivery processes would be conducted by zero emissions vehicles only and that all projects would incorporate clean energy and land use-based emissions reductions. Tis meant that when the ZEZ was enforced, the key polluters were already well positioned for change and did not block progress. As people continued to live in smaller and smaller homes through the decade, the return of London streets to people- PICARDI, STEWART centred spaces felt like the city was ﬁnally responding to residents’ — basic needs.

REFERENCE Ehsan Ahmadnejad

[1] ‘UN moves towards recognising human right to a healthy environment:’ © ‘htps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/09/un-moves- towards-recognising-human-right-to-a-healthy-environment Image 2030 LONDON 36

Annete Jezierska

Audrey de Nazelle

Daisy Narayanan

Fredrik Hjelm

Giovanni Zayas

Hamish Stewart

Helena O’Rourke-Potocki

Herman Donner

Kingsley Iweka

Kristine Solgaard

Marco Picardi

Michael Steep

Sheila Watson

Sigurd Oland Nedrelid CONTRIBUTORS LONDON CAR FREE DAY LONDON London Summit 2019 Sponsors —

Co-Sponsors

Associate Sponsors

Supporting Organisations SPONSORS SCAPE THE CITY. THE FUTURE OF LONDON STREETS STREETS THE FUTURE OF LONDON SCAPE THE CITY. 37 City of Oslo © Image LONDON CAR FREE DAY LONDON —

Scape the city: Te future of our streets © Published by London Car Free Day, June, 2020 SCAPE THE CITY. THE FUTURE OF LONDON STREETS STREETS THE FUTURE OF LONDON SCAPE THE CITY. WORLD38 CAR FREE DAY SUMMIT