An e-list post shared the journal article "
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, Car Use, and Active Travel: Evidence from the People and Places Survey of Outer London Active Travel Interventions," which describes an initiative in London to create "low traffic neighborhoods" by blocking off streets to motor vehicles with bollards and other measures.
It's definitely useful as an experiment. But we have plenty of information at our beck and call to shift significantly more trips to sustainable modes without blocking off streets, etc.
1. Developing places, including infill within existing places, at an intensity that can support transit and proximate amenities able to serve trips without "having to drive." It means creating a set of origins and destinations that operate over comparatively short distances--a grocery store within two miles, rather than 5 miles away, etc. Or having delivery options so you don't have to drive to a store to be able to bring back what you purchase, etc.
People tend to fight this tooth and nail, especially in terms of denser infill development, claiming it will have catastrophic impacts on neighborhood character and quality of life. My experience in DC, where infill is pretty surgical, in commercial districts and on transit station sites, is that it has extranormally positive benefits in terms of adding density in a manner that supports transit and other sustainable modes and the provision of neighborhood retail and other amenities.
2.
Creating an integrated set of sustainable modes which work collectively to support not owning a car, not relying primarily on the automobile to get around. I call this the
sustainable mobility platform, but used to call it the
mobility shed.
Even in DC's outer city, where transit is less frequent and there is less station density for the subway, by combining the various services/modes, it's easy to get around without owning a car.
On our block, we were the only household to do so, but it was not an imposition. A bus line was 2.5 blocks away and a subway station and a substantively sized neighborhood commercial district was 0.75 miles away. Larger commercial districts, accessible by bus, bike, walking, subway, and car share, were 2, 2.5, and 3 miles away.
3.
Transportation demand management programming and marketing. But another element is programs to assist people in making the transition In the US, there are very few examples of this. This is called Transportation Demand Management and assistance programs are pretty weak and mostly nonexistent.
Arlington County Virginia's Commuter Stores were an early best practice example of promoting transit, but have a very limited focus on other modes and are in need of a reboot, given the relentless marketing of the automobile.
The difficulty of finding parking encourages people to shift to other modes. Otherwise, when people living in places where the cost--tangible and intangible--of owning a car is high, like the core of Washington, DC, New York City or Hoboken and Jersey City, New Jersey, where off street parking is rare or expensive and the supply of on-street parking is limited, they manage to "learn" how to do this on their own.
High transit fares can be a disincentive. The cost of transit can be an issue. DC in particular has high cost transit compared to cities like NYC or SF, which have comparatively cheap monthly transit passes.
4. Delivery of goods, ride hailing. WRT the question of pick up and drop off of people and goods, I wasn't sure if that was meant positively or negatively. In fact, pick up and drop off of people and goods can be either. And in appropriate amounts, both are part of the sustainable mobility platform. Taxis of course go back hundreds of years as a mode.
With
delivery, it can mean transporting goods and deciding not to buy a car, which is good.
5.
Trip chaining. As someone who bicycled primarily from 1990 to 2019, because of the time and energy cost of biking, I was seriously focused on trip chaining.
For people who see driving as the natural and preferred way to get around, and have less demands on their time, they tend to be specifically focused on accomplishing trips/.goals separately, rather than in an integrated fashion.
This is another element of TDM that needs to be constantly marketed and reinforced.
"The street was never the same again," 1953-Ford-magazine-ad-, 50th anniversary, art by Norman Rockwell
Log in
