A positive story on how cities can adapt:https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canadas-new-normal-be… why we, alongside business and real estate leaders, urban planners, not-for-profit sector leaders, academics, and current and former politicians, have signed onto the 20 measures outlined in the 2020 Declaration for Resilience in Canadian Cities. That manifesto provides a road map for how Canadian cities can immediately chart a future that is more affordable, sustainable and equitable, building on the thought leadership that has been produced around envisioning the world we’ll have when lockdowns are lifted and economic activity returns, and putting forward a specific,detailed course for immediate action in our cities. Among the proposed measures: permitting appropriately scaled multitenant housing, co-housing, laneway housing and other gentle density to flourish; accelerating the decarbonization of our transportation systems by transforming existing roadways for safe, active transportation such as walking and biking; and embracing sustainability in our built and natural environments, by enacting funded, detailed plans to achieve a 40-per-cent urban tree canopy in Canadian cities.....The full manifesto is at 2020declaration.caSent from my phone.
Greetings everyone,
We're hosting a free webinar on May 27th about the impact of Covid-19 on
commuting. Please help spread the word, and we hope you can join us!
Registration
here.
<https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/commuting-post-pandemic-how-to-nudge-for-sustai…>
*COMMUTING POST-PANDEMIC: HOW TO NUDGE FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUTESMobility is
changing, let's make sure it is for the better.About this EventThe
workplace commute has changed dramatically over the past two months. From
the rise in telework, the fall of transit use and the explosion in bike
sales, many opportunities and threats are on the horizon. The sustainable
transportation team at Green Action Centre has collected some of the latest
research on what is happening now, and how to encourage sustainable
commuting as we re-open.This webinar is ideal for Commuter Challenge
workplace coordinators, GoManitoba Subsite partners, and Human Resources
professionals.Following the presentation, we will invite attendees to join
in a discussion. Presented by the Sustainable Transportation team at Green
Action Centre.*
*Mel Marginet* | Workplace Commuter Options
<http://greenactioncentre.ca/>Green Action Centre
<http://www.greenactioncentre.ca/>
<http://greenactioncentre.ca/content/ecocentre-directions-and-travel-options/>
3rd floor, 303 Portage Ave | (204) 925-3777 x112 | Find us here
<http://greenactioncentre.ca/content/ecocentre-directions-and-travel-options/>
**Note: I work two days a week at Green Action Centre and it may take a
few *
*days to respond to you. *
Green Action Centre is your green living hub
Support our work by becoming a member
<http://greenactioncentre.ca/support/become-a-member/>. Donate at
CanadaHelps.org <http://canadahelps.org/>
<http://www.gomanitoba.ca>
*Why the city installed video cameras along active transportation routes *
https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/why-the-city-installed-video-cameras-along-acti…
Winnipeggers may have noticed video cameras set up along active
transportation routes in different areas of the city.
A spokesperson for the City of Winnipeg told CTV News that nine streets in
the city have been designated as temporary active transportation routes to
allow for recreational activities amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
They said this allows pedestrians and cyclists to follow social distancing
requirements.
According to the City of Winnipeg website, these routes limit motor vehicle
traffic to one block throughout the area between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
The video cameras are counting to see how often these routes are getting
used.
The spokesperson said the city is collecting data at all nine sites. The
video will be turned into numerical data to record the level of usage.
These routes are in place until Friday, May 29.
"The City will re-evaluate at the end of May to determine if the
designations will be extended," the spokesperson said in a written
statement.
According to the city, video is often used instead of pneumatic traffic
tubes when counting cyclists and pedestrians.
Here is a list of the temporary bicycle and active transportation routes in
Winnipeg:
- Lyndale Drive - Cromwell Street to Gauvin Street
- Scotia Street - Anderson Avenue (at St. Cross Street) to Armstrong
Avenue
- Wellington Crescent - Academy Road (at Wellington Crescent) to Guelph
Street
- Wolseley Avenue - Raglan Road to Maryland Street
- Assiniboine Avenue - Bedson Street to Westwood Drive
- Churchill Drive - Hay Street to Jubilee Avenue
- Egerton Road - Bank Avenue to Morier Avenue
- Kildonan Drive - Helmsdale Avenue to Rossmere Crescent & Larchdale
Crescent to Irving Place
- Kilkenny Drive - Burgess Avenue to Patricia Avenue and Kings Drive
The AT-network might appreciate this.
I made a little animation last night based on a conversation with traffic
engineer Pekka Takhola.
I added a challenge for people to name a street it would work on, the
people who could make it happen and why:
https://twitter.com/SwansonAnders/status/1263153980000964608
Reason for sharing: I believe it could work for most neighbourhoods build
in Winnipeg prior to 1970 and be popular to boot (it gets bonus points for
creating a couple community gardens just when we the world needs it)
Its not a new idea, but I think it is a timely and simple one. Consider
sharing. Thanks.
-a
BICYCLE BUSINESS BOOMING
Pandemic fuels surge in bike sales with some shops running out of stock
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/bicycle-business-booming-5706085…
UNLIKE some retailers who are worrying about how to convince people to come
back to the stores, bike shops are facing a whole other problem — running
out of stock.
Demand is not the problem. Bike shops that have been around for decades are
experiencing something they have never seen before — people queuing up to
get in. But some are worried about what they’ll have left to sell as the
summer months kick in.
The lineups are partly a result of the social-distancing regulations once
customers are in the store, but demand for all things biking is spiking.
Riding a bicycle sits in one of the few sweet spots in the world of
COVID-19-enforced social distancing, but shop owners are having to deal
with the extra pressures of keeping their workplace up to the new safety
and health standards in addition to dealing with a surge in cycling
enthusiasm.
“I don’t think you can find many ladies bikes in the whole city,” said
Brian Burke, longtime owner of Olympia Cycle & Ski on St. Mary’s Road. “I
have sold out and reordered and then sold them out even before they
arrived.”
Like many other popular consumer goods, bicycle manufacturing has succumbed
to the global supply chain that is now almost exclusively based in Asia.
Tim Woodcock, owner of Woodcock Cycle Works, said: “It doesn’t matter if
the bike is made in Taiwan or Bangladesh or Vietnam, most of the parts come
from China.”
Shipments of all things from China was disrupted months ago by the
coronavirus lockdown that happened there first, and shipments have still
not caught up.
Coupled with the fact prime biking weather is now upon us, more people have
more time to ride. That means shop owners are scrambling to deal with an
unusual confluence of high demand, limited supply and a scenario where they
can only have so many people in the stores at once.
“I’m a little stressed,” Woodcock said.
He said he prides himself and his store on being focused on customer
service and now he’s forced to make people wait outside. Then there’s the
added pressure of discouraging excessive window shopping, what with the
lineups outside.
Claude Brunel, owner of Lifesport on Henderson Highway, could barely stop
to take a call from a reporter.
“I can’t get bikes, that’s the problem,” he said. “All the bikes are made
in China.”
Woodcock, who acts as an adviser to a Chinese bicycle manufacturer, had a
good perspective on market development early on and made the decision to
stock up on supply, ordering more earlier in the year than he typically
might.
“There’s normally three major shipping windows,” he said. “We realized by
the time the second and third shipping window came along vendors probably
would not be able to supply us. So we took as many as we could to have them
later if there was a shortage. Now we are starting to see those shortages.”
But even with that kind of planning, Woodcock said they are still
scrambling to keep bikes on the shop floor.
Most shops are operating on reduced hours, and it may be just as well,
because it gives them the chance to have mechanics in at night assembling
bikes and also dealing with the overwhelming demand for repairs.
“We’re getting bikes (to repair) that don’t look like they have been on the
road for 20 years,” Woodcock said.
At Olympia, Burke said he’s been hiring repair people who are working every
night from 5 to 10 p.m.
“We have adapted,” he said. “You have to adapt.”
Walter Jozwiak, owner of Lifesport on Pembina Highway, said the supply
crunch is unprecedented.
“It’s like selling Coca Cola and you’ve run out of Coke,” he said. “I was
saying to one of my staff, ‘what am I going to do two weeks from now?’” In
addition to running out of women’s bikes, popular-priced models — between
$500 and $800 — are what people are looking to buy. Many say the “exotic”
bikes that can cost as much as $4,000 are not what people are looking to
buy.
“It is a problem for everybody in the industry,” Jozwiak said. “We didn’t
realize the general population would need something to do and this is one
of the few activities that they can do in a safe mode. That’s what’s
happening.”
martin.cash(a)freepress.mb.ca
Pandemic presents obligation to change our world
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/pandemic-presents-obliga…
CRISIS creates opportunity and leverage for change. As governments prepare
to make once-in-a-generation stimulus investments to fight a global
recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are faced with an
opportunity, if not an obligation, to use it to change our world.
We are faced with a lot of uncertainty about what the future holds, but we
are not powerless against it. The choices we make today will create the
tomorrow we live in. Our decisions must be guided by a vision for the
future, holding every public dollar we spend up to the light and asking
ourselves, what will this do today, and what will it do tomorrow?
Changing our world doesn’t mean we need to start building wind turbines,
autonomous vehicles and solar panel factories. The future can learn from
the past. It can be simple, low-tech, but effective.
There is an old, not-very-sexy machine that could be the key to making our
cities more sustainable, more liveable, and more just — the humble bus.
Public transit use has cratered during the pandemic, and it will likely be
a lasting casualty. The only way to change that will be with high levels of
investment to improve service and reduce crowding.
The number of cars on Manitoba’s roads has already grown by almost 50 per
cent since 2005. Congestion has increased, commutes are longer and today,
half of Winnipeg’s greenhouse gas emissions come from vehicles. Imagine the
social, environmental and economic impact if the 170,000 trips taken on
transit every day were replaced with 170,000 more cars on our roads.
We have an opportunity to use this crisis to redefine the perception of
public transit in our city, not only to regain lost ridership but to
increase it, by making transit more convenient, more comfortable and more
frequent. Public transit may be an old idea, but it can modernize how we
move around our city, reduce emissions, and even incentivize growth and
investment through transit-oriented development.
Until transit levels are restored, investing in a comprehensive
active-transportation network that can be implemented quickly could be
vital in providing access to employment, education and recreation. Because
they use high amounts of labour and local materials, constructing bike-lane
and sidewalk infrastructure has proven to create almost 50 per cent more
jobs for every dollar invested, compared to car-only road projects.
Active transportation could be an important short-term response to the
pandemic crisis, and a legacy that transforms our urban mobility. British
Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently proclaimed that the pandemic should
result in a new golden age for cycling. It can do that here, too — if we
build for it.
Many are predicting that even after the pandemic is over, working from home
might be a trend that continues, reducing the need for commercial office
space. This could have a significant effect on the downtowns of Canadian
cities, affecting housing demand, local restaurants and shops, and arts and
entertainment venues already hit hard by the pandemic.
Stimulus dollars targeted at downtown development could redefine the city
centre and usher in a new era of residential urban growth.
Investing in downtown development is another old idea. For many years,
government programs have successfully encouraged downtown residential
growth to drive urban renewal. These programs could be replicated quickly.
A shining example of this success came in 2004, when the City of
Winnipeg spent $9 million building Waterfront Drive. That investment is
still leveraging private spending today; with two new projects soon
beginning construction, it will have attracted more than $200 million in
private development, creating almost 1,000 new homes.
Tax increment financing (TIF) has also been used as a successful
development driver in downtown Winnipeg. Using deferred taxes as the
incentive instead of up-front spending, it could be an attractive strategy
to promote economic growth for today’s cash-strapped governments. TIF
programs have leveraged more than a billion dollars in private downtown
development in Winnipeg, creating more than 2,700 new homes over 15 years.
New TIF programs could be targeted to respond to important needs, such as
affordable housing, helping to create neighbourhood diversity and
addressing the fact that 21 per cent of Winnipeg households live in
unaffordable housing, as reported by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.
A prosperous downtown is a catalyst for foreign investment, tourism and
immigration. It is also a source of civic pride, all of which might be
particularly important as we negotiate the difficult economic times ahead.
One important project that could capture the city’s imagination and
redefine Winnipeg’s downtown is the Market Lands development on the site of
the Public Safety Building, currently being demolished in the Exchange
District.
The first phase of the development will include a sparkling glass public
market building and mixed-use affordable housing tower, targeting net-zero
energy use, with several arts organizations establishing an urban creative
campus on the bottom floors.
As Waterfront Drive did 16 years ago, the dynamic first phase will create a
new focal point downtown and be a catalyst to attract private development
on the remainder of the site and beyond.
It is estimated the development will leverage more than $100 million in
private investment, create almost 1,500 person-years of employment, and
return almost $26 million in provincial and federal taxes from construction
alone.
Accelerating visionary projects such as this and others with stimulus
funding would create a lasting effect on the future of downtown and the
city.
Changing our world doesn’t mean reinventing it, and it doesn’t necessarily
require futuristic ideas. Sometimes old ideas, such as investing in public
transit, affordable housing and downtown development, or simply building a
few sidewalks and bike lanes, can be all that’s needed to make the most
effective change.
*Brent Bellamy is creative director at Number Ten Architectural Group.*
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Becky Alper <becky(a)moveminneapolis.org>
Date: Fri, May 15, 2020 at 10:04 AM
Hello TDM practitioners,
Move Minneapolis is excited to invite you all to Commute Revolution 2020: A
Seismic Approach to Transforming Transportation on Thursday, May 21 from
11am to 2pm CST.
Massive changes to our transportation system were long overdue. With
commuting routines upended and our economy in shambles we are forced to
reckon with long-needed improvements to land use and infrastructure. Tune
in to this free webinar as Move Minneapolis presents an amazing line-up of
national thought leaders and local activists, each with a compelling take
on how to build an equitable and sustainable post-pandemic transportation
system.
Full details and registration available at
www.moveminneapolis.org/transportation-summit
Here's a snapshot of the program (all times CST):
11:00 a.m. - Matthew Lewis, Director of Communications, California YIMBY
11:35 a.m. - Michael Kodransky, U.S. Director, Institute for Transportation
and Development Policy
12:05 p.m. - Angie Schmitt, Author and former contributor, Streetsblog
12:20 p.m. - Adie Tomer, Fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program, The Brookings
Institution
12:55 p.m. - Jarred Johnson, Director and COO, TransitMatters
1:25 p.m. - Alissa Walker, Urbanism Editor, Curbed
Hope you can join us!
~Becky Outreach Director Move Minneapolis becky(a)moveminneapolis.org
[TDM listserv post on the Oregon DOT's changes to speed limit setting, most
notably shifting to 50th percentile rather than 85th percentile]
Hi friends and colleagues,
I wanted to let you know that ODOT's new Oregon Administrative Rule around
speed-setting went into effect on May 1. Review an overview of the new
process
<https://www.oregon.gov/odot/Engineering/Docs_TrafficEng/Speed-Setting-Updat…>
(this
link is a helpful ppt overview) or review the corresponding Oregon
Administrative Rule updates
<https://www.oregon.gov/odot/Engineering/Docs_TrafficEng/OAR-Update-Speed-Se…>
for
information about the change. We've also updated the Speed Zone Manual
<https://www.oregon.gov/odot/Engineering/Docs_TrafficEng/Speed-Zone-Manual.p…>
to
reflect the change. All this information lives on our Speed Zones page
<https://www.oregon.gov/odot/Engineering/Pages/Speed-Zones.aspx>.
This represents a major step forward in our approach to posted speeds on
urban arterial highways. It aligns recommended speeds with the Blueprint
for Urban Design targets and anchors our technical methods around the
50th percentile
speed (the typical driver) instead of the 85th percentile (the driver
traveling one standard deviation faster than the norm). When choosing the
posted speed, our engineering approach must document and address factors
like land use context, crash history, and multimodal activity, and can also
bring other elements such as user demographics and public testimony into
the conversation. Rural communities will have the flexibility to use
50th percentile
or the 85th.
Please feel free to reach out to me or other ODOT colleagues if you have
questions about what this change means for existing plans/projects or for
corridors where speed is a concern. Be aware that our Technical Services
folks do not advise collecting speed data now due to COVID-related impacts
on travel (which we know include increased speeding in some Oregon
communities). This is new practice for all of us, so we'll be learning with
you.
Thanks and hope you're all well!
Talia Jacobson, ODOT Region 1 Planning
123 NW Flanders
Portland, OR 97209
503-731-8228
talia.jacobson(a)odot.state.or.us
*(she/her)*
[In case you don't want to sign up for a free National Geographic account,
I've pasted the article below.]
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/coronavirus-your-daily-c…
Coronavirus will upend—but perhaps make healthier—the ways we use trains,
buses, and bike lanes in our post-pandemic future.
It's time to go to work. The COVID-19 pandemic is behind us, and—in this
vision of the future—trains and buses are running again. But things look
different than they used to. You pay your fare without touching anything.
Seats are spaced farther apart on divider-filled vehicles, while drivers
sit in ventilated compartments, isolated from passengers.
Smartphone apps may help decongest trains and buses. And with more people
choosing to bike, walk, or work from home, packed train cars have become
part of the pre-pandemic lore.
While it’s impossible to predict the future, interviews with transportation
and public-health experts suggest that the pandemic offers an opportunity
to reshape transit systems and revive cities, with the potential to ward
off infectious disease and even some chronic illnesses. And while lockdowns
have put public transport in a state of crisis for the moment, strategic
investment
<https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2020/04/coronavirus-public-transit-ride…>,
creative thinking, and new technologies could eventually make people feel
safe enough to ride again, says Yingling Fan
<https://www.hhh.umn.edu/directory/yingling-fan>, an urban planner at the
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. “There's certainly a lot of
challenge, but also there's a lot of opportunity,” she says.
The pandemic might also open up possibilities for making transit systems
more inviting.
“Transportation history is full of stories where something that was done
temporarily turned out to be permanent, because people didn't want to go
back,” says Jarrett Walker <https://jarrettwalker.com/>, an international
transit consultant and author of *Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about
Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives*.
Cars don’t equal healthy
The whole purpose of mass transit is to move heaps of people, and this
crowding increases the chances of spreading infectious diseases. In a study
of dozens of people during the 2008-2009 influenza season, researchers in
the United Kingdom found that those who rode buses or trams were nearly six
times as likely as non-riders to seek health care for an acute respiratory
illness
<https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12940-018-0427-5;%20https://bmci…>
.
The natural reaction might be to take a car instead, but that ups the risk
for chronic illnesses, says Lawrence Frank
<https://www.spph.ubc.ca/person/lawrence-frank/>, a transportation and
public health expert at the University of British Columbia. In 2004, he and
his colleagues found that every extra hour
<https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(04)00087-X/abstract> that
people spend in a car each day increases their risk for obesity by 6
percent. Obesity, in turn, is a predictor of diabetes and heart
disease—which both increase a person’s vulnerability
<https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/groups-at-…>
to
COVID-19 complications.
“We want fewer people to have those preconditions, so that if a pandemic
hits, if they get exposed to it, they will survive it,” he says. “The real
question is: How do you build a future that addresses both chronic and
infectious disease?”
Urban density is unlikely to disappear, Frank says, nor should it. His
research has linked dense neighborhoods, walkability
<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01944360608976725?casa_token=tG…>,
proximity of shops, and access to public transportation with lower rates of
<http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/regional-planning/PlanningPublicatio…>
diabetes,
heart disease, and stress, as well as with reduced health-care costs.
His group <https://health-design.spph.ubc.ca/> is now investigating how
chronic disease and infectious disease vary with neighborhood walkability,
transit use, car dependence, and the ability of people to engage in active
modes of transportation, like walking and biking. Preliminary results
suggest that people who live in more walkable neighborhoods and those with less
exposure to air pollution
<http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/regional-planning/PlanningPublicatio…>
are
less likely to have chronic conditions and may be less vulnerable to dying
from COVID-19.
Preserving both public transit and encouraging active transportation is
important for keeping air pollution down, he adds, and that has health
implications, too
<https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/pollution-made-the-pande…>
.
“The most vulnerable society is the one that becomes the most sedentary and
the most car dependent, and that's the worst possible case when a pandemic
comes,” Frank says.
Infection-proofing public transit
The COVID-conscious commute may begin before you leave home, Fan says. In
some cities in China, such as Shenzhen and Guangzhou, pre-booking a seat is
already common on city buses and trains. She suspects that adding the
option of pre-paying for fares online or via smartphones could reduce the
number of people who need to touch a grimy kiosk.
It’s also possible to disperse people in ways beyond limiting transit
capacity, which plenty of places have done during the pandemic, Walker says.
Cities can use existing automatic vehicle-location
<https://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/features/making-public-transit-more-…>
and passenger-flow monitors
<https://ny.curbed.com/2019/7/30/20747360/mta-pilot-technology-improve-subwa…>
to
quickly reroute buses when demand changes. Automated passenger-counters and
weight sensors—currently in use in Australia, the U.K.
<https://ggwash.org/view/64291/real-time-signs-reduce-train-crowding>, and
elsewhere—can provide information about train-car capacity through
smartphones or display screens at stations, so riders can spread out by
picking the least crowded car.
Last year, Google started using crowdsourcing and traffic information in
more than 200 cities worldwide to give users a heads-up about how full they
should expect buses and trains to be
<https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-jam-packed-will-my-train-be-google-says-it…>.
Integrated with smartphone apps
<https://ggwash.org/view/64291/real-time-signs-reduce-train-crowding>, all
this information could reduce congestion by allowing passengers to avoid
crowded platforms and vehicles. So far, this type of data has not been used
by officials to enforce crowd spacing on public transport, Fan says, but
applying the idea is conceivable, as China already uses similar technology
to restrict road traffic.
However, using some of these apps might mean surrendering certain levels of
privacy. Monitoring apps on your phone, for example, could alert you if you
have ridden a train with someone who later tested positive for COVID-19. Apple
and Google
<https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/apple-and-google-pa…>
are
developing software with this kind of contact-tracing capability, which is
already available in China, Singapore, and other countries.
Cultural differences play into the willingness to give up privacy, Fan
says. South Korea’s contact tracing has been successful in part because
laws allow the government to track an infected person’s credit card history
and cell phone location data.
“The trade-off between privacy and safety is a hot topic,” Fan says. “I do
not think the general public in the U.S. is ready for any strict
contact-tracing measures.”
Facial sensors like ones that have been deployed on public transportation
in China
<https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3049215/ai-firms-deploy-fever-dete…>
may
also measure your temperature, rejecting entry to a bus or subway station
if you have a fever. Once antibody testing is accurate and easily available
<https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/why-unreliable-tests-are…>,
you might even show an immunity card before you can board, though there
will be a fine line between safety and hassle, adds David Levinson
<https://www.sydney.edu.au/engineering/about/our-people/academic-staff/david…>,
a transport engineer at the University of Sydney, Australia.
“All of those invasions of privacy are things that are not going to make
people happy, and are going to make them more likely to use other modes
than public transit,” he says. “People will find alternatives if they can.”
Bike bounce
Bikes are among those alternatives. New bike lanes have already been
popping up during the pandemic, appearing in cities from Berlin
<https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-pandemic-gives-cyclists-more-road-in-berl…>
to
Bogota. In recent weeks, Oakland, California, has closed 74 miles
<https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-closing-streets-to-traf…>
of
streets to make room for cyclists and pedestrians, and many other places,
including Seattle
<https://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2020/05/07/2020-bike-investments-to-accelerate…>,
Washington*,* and Milan
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/milan-seeks-to-prevent-post-c…>,
Italy, aim to permanently reduce car use.
Experts predict these bike lanes will create a self-perpetuating cycle, as
the number of people biking boosts demand. During a major overhaul of the
freeway through downtown Seattle, for example, the city temporarily turned
traffic lanes into bus lanes, and then never took them away. Building 400
miles of bike paths in Paris would cost much less than
<https://www.ft.com/content/52ae6c52-8e75-11ea-a8ec-961a33ba80aa>—just two
percent the price—an upcoming redesign of the city’s subway system.
Biking isn’t realistic for everyone, Walker says, and it tends to be more
accessible to people who live close to their jobs. Still, a growing
industry of electronic bikes could help people commute farther, especially
if public transportation systems integrate their fare structures with
bike-sharing programs to allow people to hop from bike to train to bike
again, Frank says. E-bikes are already available through share
programs in dozens
of cities
<https://www.usnews.com/news/cities/articles/2019-08-12/e-bikes-take-the-lea…>
.
Work from home forever?
For some people, the future of commuting might be no commute
<https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/04/06/telecommuting-will-likel…>
at
all. About half of adults with jobs in the U.S. are working from home
during the pandemic, according to a report published by the Brookings
Institution in April. That’s more than double the percentage who did some
telecommuting two years ago. Close to 20 percent of chief financial
officers surveyed by Brookings said they planned to permanently retain
remote work for at least 20 percent of their workers.
This kind of societal shift could further reduce crowding and the spread of
disease on mass transit, Levinson says, especially if people go into
offices only occasionally, if they bike when they can, and if they get
better about staying home when sick.
Still, maintaining strong public transit systems is a key component of
vibrant cities, Fan says. Buses, trains, and other modes of public
transportation bring people together across race and income, and that kind
of mixing builds empathy in a way that sitting in your car doesn’t.
“Public transportation is a place where people experience urbanism,” she
says. “It’s where people negotiate their differences.”