Urban Mobility, Health and Public Spaces:
Reshaping Urban Landscapes
Urban 20 White Paper
A contribution from Felipe Targa, William Moose, Nicolás Estupiñán andCarlos Mojica to the Urban 20 (U20)

Source: Retail Gazette (www.retailgazette.co.uk)

About Urban 20•

Urban 20 (U20) is a new city diplomacy initiative developed under the leadership of, Horacio
Rodríguez Larreta, Mayor of the City of Buenos Aires, Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris and Chair of
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40). Launched on December 12, 2017 at the One Planet
Summit in Paris, the initiative is chaired by the cities of Buenos Aires and Paris, and convened by
C40, in collaboration with United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG).
U20 seeks to highlight the expertise of cities in a range of global development challenges andto raise the profile of urban issues within the G20. U20 offers solutions and clear
recommendations for consideration by national leaders ahead of the 2018 G20 Summit. It will
culminate in the inaugural U20 Mayors Summit in Buenos Aires on October 29-30. This will be a
stepping stone towards ensuring a dialogue between cities and the G20.
In 2018, 26 cities have participated in Urban 20: Barcelona, Beijing, Berlin, City of Buenos Aires,
Chicago, Durban, Hamburg, Houston, Jakarta, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Madrid,
Mexico City, Milan, Montreal, Moscow, New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, São Paulo, Seoul,
Sydney, Tokyo, and Tshwane.
For more information, please consult: www.urban20.org

About the White Papers
Urban 20 is proud to present a series of White Papers from our Strategic and Advisory Partners
that highlight the most relevant topics on the cities development agenda and the forthcoming
urban trends. These papers define the challenges that local governments are currently facing
and offer open recommendations supported by relevant, up-to-date research and data. The
intention of this work is to broaden the understanding and perspective of decision makers andstakeholders as to enhance their ability to tackle these most pressing issues. The White Papers
also represent the hard work and dedication of these agencies and organizations to keep the
public well informed about the ongoing efforts to address the present and future challenges weshare as humankind.

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Urban Mobility, Health and Public Spaces: Reshaping
Urban Landscapes is a White Paper prepared bysubject matter experts from U20 Strategic Advisory
Partners as a voluntary contribution to enrich thediscussions of the Urban 20 process.

About
AboutthetheAuthors
Authors
Felipe Targa
Senior Urban Transport Specialist, WBG
Felipe Targa is a Senior Urban Transport Specialist working at theWorld Bank. Former Colombia’s Deputy Transport Minister,
university-based CityLab Director, and 20 years of experience inthe public sector, multilateral development institutions, andacademia. Advocate of bicycle urbanism, placemaking andhuman-scale cities. He holds a masters in City and Regional
Planning from the University of North Carolina and advanced to Ph.D.
candidacy in Transport Systems from the University of Maryland.
William Moose
Consultant, WBG
William Moose is a transportation and urban planner specialized in
non-motorized modes. He has a masters in City and Regional
Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has
worked with the Highway Safety Research Center and currently
consults for the World Bank on sustainable mobility projects in
Latin America.
Nicolás Estupiñán
Urban Transport Coordinator, CAF
Nicolás Estupiñán is a transport specialist, who served astransport vice-minister in Colombia during 2012-2014. He holds a
BS in civil engineering (Universidad de los Andes) and a masters
in urban planning from UNC at Chapel Hill. During his 15 years ofexperience has worked for the public sector in Colombia and fordevelopment banks, enhancing the urban transport agenda,
fostering sustainable development and poverty reduction.
Currently, works at CAF- Development Bank of Latin America as
the Head of the Urban Transport Unit.

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Carlos Mojica
Urban Transport Senior Specialist, IDB
Carlos Mojica is a Senior Urban Transport Specialist at theInter-American Development Bank, where he is responsible forleading multi-disciplinary teams in transport financing projects. He
received his Civil Engineering degree from Universidad de Los
Andes (Colombia) and completed two Masters Degrees inTransportation Science and City Planning from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (M.I.T.). His chief professional interests are
the financing of sustainable transport programs and theemergence of new mobility technologies.

The World Bank Group is one of the world’s largest sources offunding and knowledge for developing countries. It comprises fiveclosely associated institutions: the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International
Development Association (IDA), which together form the World
Bank; the International Finance Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral
Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and the International Centre
for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Each institution plays
a distinct role in the mission to fight poverty and improve living
standards for people in the developing world. For more
information, please visit www.worldbank.org, www.miga.org, andwww.ifc.org.
CAF –Development Bank of Latin America- is a multilateral financial
institution whose mission is to support the sustainable
development of its shareholder countries and the integration of
Latin America. Its shareholders are: Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia,
Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador,
Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain,
Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela and 13 private banks in
the region.
CAF assists the public and private sectors, providing multiple
products and services to a wide portfolio of clients comprised byshareholder countries, private companies and financial
institutions. The institution’s management policies integrate socialand environmental variables, and all of its operations take into
account sustainability and eco-efficiency criteria. As a financial
intermediary, the bank mobilizes resources from international
markets to Latin America to promote investment and business
opportunities.
The Inter-American Development Bank is devoted to improving
lives. Established in 1959, the IDB is a leading source of long-term
financing for economic, social and institutional development in
Latin America and the Caribbean. The IDB also conducts
cutting-edge research and provides policy advice, technicalassistance and training to public and private sector clients
throughout the region.

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Contents
Executive summary...................................................................................................................................... 6
Glossary.......................................................................................................................................................... 7
1. Introduction................................................................................................................................................8
2. Analysis...................................................................................................................................................... 11
2.1 A synthesis of key literature...................................................................................................... 15
2.2 Shifting from car space to public space: from tactical urbanism to permanentinterventions.................................................................................................................................... 18
2.3 Urban street transformation to address air-quality problems............................................ 19
2.4 Street transformation: a global phenomenon...................................................................... 23
2.5 A new transportation paradigm: shared mobility................................................................. 26
Recommendations.................................................................................................................................... 28
Bibliography............................................................................................................................................... 33
Acknowledgments................................................................................................................................... 36

The views, opinions, positions and recommendations expressedin this White Paper are solely those of the authors and do notnecessarily reflect the view of the those of WBG, IDB, CAF, their
Boards of Directors, Urban 20 or any of its chairs, conveners,
partners and participating cities. Many of the references in thisWhite Paper will direct the reader to sites operated by third
parties. Neither the institutions nor the authors of this White
Paper have reviewed all of the information on these sites or theaccuracy or reliability of any information, data, opinions, advice orstatements on these sites.

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Executive summary
Cities are critical actors in the efforts to address global and localized challenges and theirtraditional role as drivers of economic growth and innovation. Coupled with the growing shareof the global population residing in urban areas, cities’ relative importance is ever increasing.
Cities are uniquely poised to play a role at every scale necessary for urban transformation: thestreet, the neighborhood, citywide, and in collaboration with regional and national governments.
The challenges to be addressed, both locally and globally, relate to mobility needs and accessto social and economic opportunities, public health, an insufficient supply of and access topublic spaces, and interrelated issues relating to sustainability and resilience.
This paper argues that cities can have a positive impact on these issues by leveraging a nearlyomnipresent but often overlooked asset: streets. To do this, cities need to reexamine thedominant existing uses of streets, which in most places are for moving and storing private motor
vehicles. Instead, cities must embrace the multifunctional street concept, which recognizes thatmobility is merely one of the uses of a street and that streets can also have a place or public
space function as well as an environmental function. By balancing street space among thesethree uses—mobility, place, and environment—cities can create urban transformations and, inthe process, address numerous local and global challenges. Reclaiming the streets’ public
space function can be an effective way of addressing the issues of supply and access to public
spaces, while providing benefits for health equity, social inclusion, the environment, andsustainable forms of mobility.
In order to take advantage of the full potential of streets, coordination among government
agencies will be key at the local, regional and national scales. Efforts to transform streets into
drivers of positive change will also benefit from close collaboration with local communities andprivate sector stakeholders, and with non-traditional planning partners such as public healthofficials and researchers.
This paper reviews relevant plans, design guidelines, and academic literature on the topic of amultifunctional street paradigm, presents case studies of projects around the world wherethese principles have been implemented, and makes recommendations for cities and national
governments in order to optimize transformative street initiatives. Collectively, the literature
review, case studies and recommendations highlight an ongoing paradigm shift toward
healthier and inclusive streets at a global scale. Accelerating the pace and scale of thistransformation of urban landscapes will require a call for coordinated action and intervention at
multiple levels ranging from the local street to the halls of national governments.

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Glossary
BIGRS

Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety•

CAF

Development Bank of Latin Am

GDCI

Global Designing Cities Initiative

GDP

Gross Domestic Product

GHG

Greenhouse Gases

IDB

Inter-American Development Bank

ITF

International Transport Forum

NACTO

National Association of City Transportation
Officials

SDG

Sustainable Development Goals

UN

United Nations

WBG

World Bank Group

WHO

World Health Organization

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1. Introduction
We live in an increasingly urbanized world where cities are becoming the engines of global
economic growth. 1 According to United Nations (UN) figures, as of 2018, 55 percent of the world’s
population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is projected to grow to 68 percent by 2050. The
combined factors of urbanization and general population growth will likely add a further 2.5
billion people to urban areas by 2050 (United Nations 2018). Such rapid growth and urbanizationpose immense challenges and opportunities for cities: in this context they will play an ever morevital role in addressing global challenges while having to continue to meet the local needs oftheir residents.
The complex and seamless intersection of the social, built, and natural environments in urban
areas offers opportunities to address some of the global challenges for sustainable
development while bringing benefits to urban residents. Conversely, poor management of thisinteraction poses serious risks to public health, social inclusion, and the environmental
sustainability of cities. This paper presents a framework for local and national governments toaddress many of these challenges by focusing on one particular element of the city: the street.
This element has the potential to continue serving the movement of people and goods while
also offering more sustainable mobility options, increased access to opportunities, and theunlocking of a wide range of social, economic and environmental benefits for local residents.
The street can also play a fundamental role in contributing to global sustainable development
goals. A critical first step toward tapping into this potential must be the recognition that many ofthese problems stem in large part from the automobile-centric design that until recently has
dominated the public policy debate on urban design and transportation planning. The
conceptual framework and recommendations presented in this paper offer elements andarguments for policy decision makers to scale and accelerate a paradigm shift that is alreadyreshaping the urban landscapes in cities around the world.
Over the past decade, a new wave of collaboration has emerged among urban andtransportation planners, engineers, public health researchers, and other social scientists who
have studied how urban design and environments affect health, social inclusion, and otherdevelopment outcomes. A new urban health agenda gaining momentum among researchersand public officials focuses on the effects of urban policies and interventions on healthoutcomes and social inequalities of health, as well as the environmental sustainability of cities(Diez Roux 2018). This agenda offers a novel approach to understanding how the form andquality of urban landscapes are interrelated with key concepts of human and environmental
capital in cities and, from a development perspective, offers an alternative approach toidentifying urban interventions with the potential to produce happier, healthier, more
economically vibrant and prosperous communities and nations.
Evidence from this wealth of research has demonstrated that the environments where we live,
work and play define and shape how healthy a community or an individual is, and, if combinedwith other policies, how prosperous and inclusive a society is. This is how public space isbecoming integral to the urban health concept and to the sustainable development agenda. In
spite of this evidence, practitioners and public officials continue planning and designing themost important shared places in cities—public spaces—without fully understanding and taking
into consideration all of these interactions and implications.
The quantity and quality of public spaces differ considerably from city to city and within
cityneighborhoods. Based on the existing research, access to and quality of available public

1

600 cities are projected to generate more than 60 percent of global growth by 2025 (McKinsey Global
Institute 2011).

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spaces across and within cities may be related to health equity and social inclusion outcomesin urban areas around the world. A city’s public spaces comprise streets (including curbs,
sidewalks, and space of transportation networks), parks, plazas, river and sea waterfronts,
cultural and recreational public facilities, and other open, privately owned spaces. These are thespaces that support mobility, recreational/physical activity, opportunities to access job markets
as well as health and education centers, to meet and see others, to access nature andgreenery, and more (Gehl Institute and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation 2018). Although public
spaces could be distributed functionally and spatially in support of most of these needs, on a
global scale streets represent around three-quarters of a city’s public space.

“The high proportion of urban public space
represented by streets offers an opportunity
for governments to target a review of public
policies on this particular infrastructureelement of the city”.

With the advent of the automobile, many cities around the world faced a radical shift towardautomobile-oriented development with the construction of wider urban roads and highways,
and the rebalancing of street public space to accommodate motor vehicles. This dedication ofstreet space to motor vehicles involves significant subsidies for private car use, both directly inthe form of underpriced parking, street maintenance, and toll-free travel for motor vehicles, andindirectly through a range of negative social, environmental and health externalities created t
hrough motor vehicle use.
In recent years, cities around the globe are experiencing a new radical shift toward a healthier,more inclusive and balanced share of street public space. This change in paradigm isaccompanied by ample evidence of the local and global costs from externalities associatedwith car-oriented street design, externalities that could be mitigated either by rebalancing theavailable space, or by pricing these externalities and eliminating the implicit subsidies historicallyprovided for car parking and road space. This paradigm shift is being facilitated andaccelerated by innovative approaches to street space use (e.g., participatory placemaking andtactical urbanism) and the advent of shared mobility services and autonomous vehicle
technologies.

“This paper discusses key areas in which cities facesignificant challenges for equity, health, social
inclusion, and environmental sustainability, and how
the effective, equitable use of city streets can help tomeet these challenges. The paper also discusses
how cities and national governments can work
together to harmonize their public policies andaddress these global challenges in a more
effective manner”.

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9In order for cities to unlock the full potential of streets, they must shift away from a paradigm ofusing streets predominantly for moving and storing private motor vehicles toward one which
recognizes that streets can serve other functions beyond mobility, such as place (the street’sfunction as a public space) and environmental functions.

“By efficiently reallocating street space, cities canbalance the mobility, place, and environmental
functions of streets, thus improving urban health,reducing social inequalities, and strengthening
resilience and environmental sustainability”.

It is important to realize that efforts to meet mobility, place, and environmental goals for streets
do not need to be mutually exclusive and there are often opportunities to promote all three. The
alternative to embracing a multifunctional paradigm for healthy and inclusive streets andinstead prioritizing automobility will continue to lead to negative outcomes for cities andcountries in terms of the numerous global challenges, and to worsen local equity andinclusion gaps.
This paper presents a conceptual framework for the evaluation of the mobility, place, andenvironmental functions of streets. This framework demonstrates how the intersection of theurban health, transportation (urban mobility and access to opportunities) and public spaces
agendas shares a common objective, and how current trends in digital development, sharedeconomy, and clean technologies offer an opportunity to accelerate this change in public
policies. It also presents a number of cases from cities which have demonstrated the positive
impacts of adopting holistic strategies that recognize the need to balance the three street
functions. These cities include Madrid and Oslo for the creation of car-free zones; New York City,
Buenos Aires and Paris as examples of the reallocation of street space for sustainable mobility
and healthy public spaces; and Barcelona as one of the most radical citywide approaches torebalancing the share of street space toward a multifunctional street paradigm. These cases
illustrate how the new shift toward healthier and inclusive streets is occurring at a global level
and is valid for various scales: the street, the neighborhood, and the city.
Reshaping urban landscapes through better street-based public space design, management
and participatory approaches allows cities to explore quick and impactful ways to enhance thelives of citizens, neighborhoods, and cities as a whole. Well-designed and -managed public
spaces within urban landscapes play multiple functions and serve as critical drivers of thequality and viability of a city’s economic, social and environmental capital, impacting mobility,
safety, public health, economic vibrancy, and innovation.
It is worth noting that addressing access, mobility, public space, and environmental challenges
is firmly in line with many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) adopted by the global
community in the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New
Urban Agenda, in particular the SDG 11.7 on Public Space: “by 2030, provide universal access tosafe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children,
older persons and persons with disabilities”.

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Source: Sustainability Writer - WordPress.com

2. Analysis
Cities are confronting a myriad of challenges today that have profound immediate andlong-term impacts. To address many of these challenges, a critical first step must be therecognition that many of these problems stem in large part from automobile-centric design.
Several of these challenges are directly related to public health. One is the growing prevalenceof sedentary lifestyles, which is directly related to the design of cities. Physical inactivity has beenshown to increase the risk of heart disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis, andvarious forms of cancer, dementia, and depression. Urban places that encourage active formsof transportation like walking and cycling allow residents to benefit from physical activity as partof their daily routines. Because childhood obesity and diabetes are on the rise globally, including
low- and middle-income countries, opportunities for active mobility are particularly important for
reducing long-term negative health impacts for future generations (World Health Organization
2016). Unfortunately, development in many cities today is car dependent, leading to driving foreven the shortest trips and consequently to negative physical, social and environmental
outcomes. Although sedentary lifestyles are the leading cause of urban mortality in most cities
worldwide, most national and local governments have not developed strategies to deal with
non-communicable diseases related to urban living.
Ambient air pollution is another particularly alarming issue that accounted for an estimated 4.2
million deaths worldwide in 2016. The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies motorizedtransportation as a major contributor to the problem of poor air quality, and the noxious impactsof motor vehicles are particularly concentrated in urban areas (World Health Organization 2018).
Motor vehicles are also a major source of noise pollution, which has proven harmful effects forthe physical and psychological health of city dwellers.
Road safety also demands swift and decisive action: approximately 1.25 million people are killedeach year in traffic crashes globally and a further 20 to 50 million sustain non-fatal injuries. These
incidents have major impacts on victims’ families, survivors’ quality of life, and productivity. The
WHO has estimated that road traffic deaths and injuries cause economic losses of three
percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while losses in low and middle-income countries
account for as much as five percent of GDP. Moreover, nearly half of the victims of roadtraffic crashes are vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists (World HealthOrganization 2018).
However, the impacts of these challenges are not equally distributed. Communities locatedalong major corridors of motor vehicle traffic bear the greatest burden in terms of both road

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traffic incidents and health issues arising from poor air quality and high noise levels. The
communities suffering from these issues are also disproportionately marginalized, both sociallyand economically, in many cities (Pratt 2015) (Smart Growth America 2016).
The lack of urban vegetation and the progressive expansion of anthropocentric structures incities also pose challenges. Although the presence of greenery in urban contexts has been
linked to positive mental and physical health outcomes, in many cases urban flora has been
removed to make way for more and wider roads and other forms of development. Reversing thistrend by planting trees and other forms of vegetation in urban areas provides benefits in termsof stormwater management and the mitigation of urban heat islands, which place greater
demands on energy consumption and have negative impacts on human health.
Climate change mitigation and resilience to extreme weather-related events are two othercritical issues that cities face. Cities are themselves major producers of greenhouse gases(GHGs), accounting for more than 70 percent of global CO2 emissions. Furthermore, thepotential threat from sea-level rise affects countless cities because 90 percent of all urban areas
are coastal (C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group 2017). Motorized transportation constitutes asignificant share of carbon emissions in cities. In Oslo, for instance, private cars account for 39
percent of all CO2 emissions in the city. However, cities also present major opportunities withrespect to transportation: greater population density, employment and diversity of land uses inurban settings are highly favorable to more sustainable forms of transportation such as walking,cycling and public transportation. There is an urgent need for a rapid shift to more sustainabletransportation options. The need for urban greenery is particularly important from a resiliency
perspective due to the effects of climate change, in particular increasingly frequent extreme
weather events that can bring heavy rains and flooding and longer, hotter summers.
Addressing these challenges will require recognition by a range of actors, including urban andtransportation planners, architects, engineers, developers, public health specialists, and social
scientists, that their agendas have considerable common interests and that they must work ingreater concert, breaking silos between professional disciplines and different levels ofgovernment. We argue that these actors can have a positive impact on global and local
challenges through collaborative initiatives in local urban planning and design, with a focus on
public spaces and the principle of health equity and social inclusion.
As argued in the introduction, in order to address these multiple challenges at the local level,
there is arguably no more effective space for intervention than the street network. A 2013 UN
report analyzed the street networks of 60 cities and found that more than 20 percent of all landarea in many cities is dedicated to streets, with New York City allocating the greatest share ofland area to streets at 36 percent. Other cities allocating a large share of space to streets wereHong Kong, Barcelona, Tokyo, Toronto, London, Paris, and Amsterdam (UN-Habitat 2013).2 Streets
also make up the greatest proportion of public spaces in cities at roughly 75 percent on
average, according to the UN. The importance of streets as a public space is often overlooked.
In fact, the area dedicated to streets in many urban areas is usually much greater than the total
area dedicated to parks, plazas and other open spaces. The UN report states that, together,
they should make up 45 to 50 percent of a city’s urban area, with 30 to 35 percent occupied bystreets and 15 to 20 percent by open space. By contextualizing the street in its proper place asurban areas’ primary source of public space, its full potential as an asset for cities wishing to2

Although many of cities studied dedicated a large share (more than 20 percent) of land area to streets,
suburban areas surrounding urban cores dedicated much less land area to streets. Likewise, many of
the cities studied in the Latin America, Africa and Asia regions dedicated less than 20 percentof landarea to streets and had lower levels of intersection and street density. Nonetheless, streets can still play
an important role in urban transformation in these settings as well. Moving forward, in areas with a low
proportion of land area dedicated to streets, it will be particularly importantto emphasizeincreasing street
and intersection density in development and redevelopment projects.

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12effect change becomes clear.
In essence, cities often have a vast network of public space right under their noses that can beleveraged to address local and global challenges. The importance of the street as a public
space becomes even more relevant because many cities have a relatively low amount of public
open or green space per capita, and large spatial and socioeconomic disparities are often
present in terms of accessibility to existing public spaces.

“Reclaiming the streets’ public space function can be
an effective way of addressing the issues of supply
and access to public spaces, while providing benefits
for health equity, social inclusion, the environment,
and sustainable forms of mobility”.

Why has the street so often been overlooked as a public space asset? Historically, streets wereused for many purposes, among them the transportation of people and goods, but they also
served as spaces to meet the social, economic and cultural needs of urban residents. Althoughsome separation of uses has always existed on streets, the introduction and massification of theautomobile fundamentally transformed the use of streets. Within a few short decades, street
space in countless cities had been surrendered mostly to the movement and parking of motor
vehicles, with only residual spaces reserved for pedestrians. Other social, cultural and economic
activities were gradually displaced from streets in many cities (Rodríguez-Valencia and L. Handy
2013). The extent to which streets have been surrendered to motor vehicles is nothing short ofastonishing. In New York City, for instance, roughly 85 percent of street space is dedicatedprimarily to cars (UN-Habitat 2013). Likewise, according to the CAF (Observatorio Movilidad
Urbana), in a sample of 29 Latin American cities less than one percent of their transportation
network was prioritized for public transportation and even less to cyclists. Given the dominanceof the automobile and of the mobility function of streets in many cities around the world, it is easy
to see how they are overlooked as a public space: although they may be under public
jurisdiction, they are often not places that encourage lingering, recreation, and other activities
typically associated with public spaces. By focusing so much on the mobility function of motor
vehicles, the street lost its most valuable aspect of providing local access to diverse economic
and social opportunities at the neighborhood level.
In order for the street to assume its place as a cornerstone of cities’ efforts to address local andglobal challenges, a fundamental reassessment of the dominant paradigm of street use must
be undertaken by a range of actors, including urban and transportation planners, public healthprofessionals, private sector companies and organizations, and public policy makers. The
dominant uses of streets today in many cities is mobility, and the allocation of street space forthat purpose is often heavily imbalanced in favor of motorized modes. However, streets can also
play critical public space and environmental roles (Rodríguez-Valencia and L. Handy 2013). The
public space function, which may also be referred to as the place function, refers to the street
as a place for socialization, recreation, and cultural activity, while the environmental functionrefers to streets’ capacity to maximize environmental benefits and reduce the environmental
impact of street design. Through a reallocation of street space, a street’s functions can besignificantly altered to achieve different goals. Moreover, just as streets can be transformed toincorporate public space and environmental functions, so too can the dominant mobility
function itself be transformed: space currently allocated for moving and storing private motor
vehicles can be reallocated to provide more high-quality space for people to more efficiently
and equitably access opportunities for employment, education and recreation through walking,cycling and public transportation.

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By rebalancing the street to accommodate these three interrelated functions, cities can tackle
a myriad of challenges in the areas of mobility, public space, and the environment. These
challenges are summarized by street function in the following graph. Numerous cross-cutting
challenges, such as health, equity, and environmental sustainability, relate to multiple street
functions. Furthermore, many of these challenges have profound implications at local andglobal scales.

Figure 1. Multifunctional street and local/global challenges

The Multifunctional Street

2

1
3

1

1

1

3

2

3

1

MOBILITY
SafetyHealthEfficiency
Sustainability
Equity2

ENVIRONMENT
Resilience
HealthSustainability
Urban Ecosystems

3

PUBLIC SPACE
Social Inclusion
Health & Quality of Life
EquitySecurity

Source: Authors, adapted from photo by Paisea Magazine. Sant Joan Promenade. Barcelona, Spain.

1. Mobility:
Safety: reducing road-related deaths and serious injuries, especially for vulnerable road users
such as people who walk or bicycle, children, older adults, and people with reduced mobility;
Health: addressing the health impacts of physical inactivity and motor vehicle dependence aswell as the noxious effects of ambient air pollution and noise pollution;
Efficiency: addressing the impacts of congestion on the movement of people and goods;
Sustainability: encouraging trips by walking, cycling, and public transportation, anddiscouraging private motor vehicle use to reduce GHG emissions; andEquity: improving affordable access to opportunities and basic services for all, regardless ofmode of transportation.

2. Environment:
Resilience: adapting to the impacts of climate change, such as increasingly extreme
weather-related events and longer, hotter summers;

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Health: reducing the noxious effects of air and noise pollution, urban heat islands, andstormwater quality and quantity;
Sustainability: mitigating the human impact on the environment, including the reduction of GHG
emissions and the improvement of water quality; andUrban ecosystems: ensuring the health and biodiversity of urban flora and fauna.

3. Public Space:
Social inclusion: ensuring opportunities for interaction and promotion of social cohesion;
Health and quality of life: providing spaces and amenities for leisure and recreation tocontribute to the mental and physical well-being of city residents;
Equity: ensuring that access to quality public spaces is available to all, regardless of income,age, gender, or race; andSecurity: ensuring that public spaces are well-designed, maintained and used plays animportant role in crime prevention.

2.1 A synthesis of key literature
A number of studies, reports, plans and design guidelines have presented proposals foranalyzing and implementing multifunctional streets. They all recognize that there areconsiderable opportunities for fulfilling more than one street function at a time. For instance,
reallocating a lane of traffic from motor vehicles to a protected bicycle lane can incorporate
vegetation in the barrier between traffic and bikes, or permeable pavement can be used on thebike lane to provide environmental and mobility benefits.
One article (Rodríguez-Valencia and L. Handy 2013) explicitly identifies the mobility, place, andenvironmental functions of streets. However, the authors point out an important challenge:
because urban space is often in high demand by different users and uses, how can the right ofway be distributed in a balanced and equitable manner? For instance, with a 15-meter right ofway, how many meters should be allocated to mobility, how many to place, and how many to theenvironmental function? How should trade-offs be evaluated? Should a parking lane beconverted to a bus lane or a wide sidewalk with trees and seating? There is no objectively rightor wrong way to determine this allocation, but there is consensus that the number of people perunit of time and space (space footprint) and the environmental footprint should be accounted
for in a context of equitable allocation of limited resources.
Another article (Hui 2018) attempted to address this issue of allocation of the different functionsof streets. The authors analyzed a range of frameworks, plans and studies related to theconcept of “complete streets”. Although this term typically refers to the objective ofaccommodating all road users safely regardless of mode, it often references concepts likeplacemaking and environmental best practice in street design. However, the authors found thatnone of the materials reviewed, predominantly from North American cities, provided a suitable
framework for assessing the completeness of complete streets in these three functions.
Both articles argue that the current paradigm of street space design and allocation is typicallydetermined through an analysis of the trade-offs between vehicle mobility and property access.
These articles also argue that this approach is incomplete even for the mobility function
because it can omit important aspects like road safety and equitable access by transportation
options to desired destinations. To move toward a more comprehensive approach forevaluating the completeness of complete streets and the trade-offs among alternatives, Hui etal. propose that context-sensitive standards should be established for different types of streets.
This process would involve establishing metrics for the measurement of each of the three street
functions and then setting target performance levels for each function based on the context ofa particular street. For instance, a street designated as a critical bicycle corridor may require
higher performance standards on mobility measures such as cyclist comfort and safety,

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whereas a non-arterial street in a downtown urban core with high residential and/or employment
density may require higher performance standards for the place function. Although the authors
do not attempt to develop such a framework and prove its feasibility, this study serves to identify
an important gap and suggest a path forward for creating a more methodical, standardized andreplicable approach to developing streets that balance these three demands.
Although there will frequently be competition among the three street functions, and there willcertainly be situations in which one function cannot be improved without worsening another,
there are many cases in which changes to streets can further multiple street function objectives
at once and mutually support one another. Despite the lack of clear, standardized frameworks todetermine how this space should be allocated, a number of plans, reports and design
guidelines provide recommendations on how to capitalize on the synergies among these three uses.

Source: ciclovivo.com.br

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) published the Urban Street
Stormwater Guide in 2017. As its title suggests, the primary focus of this guide is to provide design
guidance on options for stormwater management. However, a significant theme of the guide is finding
opportunities in which the introduction of green infrastructure can also promote mobility, place, andhealth goals, building on the work of previous NACTO guides such as the Urban Street, Urban Bikeway,
and Transit Street Guides. The Urban Street Stormwater Guide notes that automobile-oriented
infrastructure results in wide roadways with large expanses of impervious surface, which can lead topoor water quality, increase flooding, and worsen urban heat-island effects. In making geometricchanges to streets to improve conditions for people who walk, cycle, and use transit, space is often
unlocked for green infrastructure as well. For instance, green infrastructure can be incorporated into
traffic-calming infrastructure such as curb extensions, or into sidewalk, transit stop, median island, andbikeway design. A wider sidewalk can provide more space for walking and seating, but also more
space for trees and vegetation that retain stormwater, improve water quality, absorb air and noise
pollution, provide a safety barrier from motor vehicle traffic, and create a more pleasant environment forstreet life. The guide provides numerous examples that demonstrate how resilience, sustainability,
safety, health, and place goals can all be furthered simultaneously by embracing a multifunctional
approach to street design (National Association of City Transportation Officials 2017).
Two additional studies with a predominant environmental focus from the city of Barcelona are also
noteworthy: Green Urban Corridors: Examples and Design Criteria from 2010, and the Plan for Urban
Greenery and Biodiversity of Barcelona, 2020 from 2012. These reports are notable for suggestinga novel street typology: the green corridor. Green corridors are streets that cross the urban

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fabric, connecting existing parks, plazas and open spaces with a dominant presence of vegetationand exclusive or priority use by pedestrians and bicycles. The concept of network connectivity is
widespread in transportation planning. There are numerous examples of how connected networks (forexample, of high-quality bicycle infrastructure) provide far more benefits than disconnected, one-off
projects. By creating a connected network of green spaces, these streets can boost theenvironmental, social, and health benefits of urban green spaces and increase urban residents’ qualityof life, thus demonstrating that the benefits of network connectivity are not limited to mobility but also
extend to place and environmental functions. Like the NACTO Urban Street Stormwater Guide, theseplans also offer numerous examples of the environmental, mobility, place, health, and safety benefits ofa multifunctional approach to streets.
From the health perspective, the 2018 report Inclusive Healthy Places by The Gehl Institute and theRobert Wood Johnson Foundation is significant. It provides one of the first frameworks to create
equitable, vibrant public spaces through the lens of health. Elements of street and sidewalk design
figure significantly in the report’s recommendations. This framework bridges gaps in the fields of publichealth and urban planning and design. Similarly, the Project for Public Spaces produced the report The
Case for Healthy Places: Improving Health Outcomes through Placemaking in 2016. This report alsooffers concrete guidance on reshaping streets with a focus on public space to promote healthierlifestyles, and provides numerous case studies throughout the United States, including several thatinvolved the active roles of healthcare intuitions.
Although the trade-offs necessary to move toward a multifunctional street scheme are not always easy,
the argument that there is simply not enough space to alter existing uses is not always convincing. To
demonstrate this point, the bicycle design consulting firm Copenhagenize created a series of striking
visualizations of the amount of street space dedicated to different users of the spaces: motorists,
pedestrians, and cyclists.

Figure 2. The Arrogance of Space – Paris(Copenhagenize.com The Blog by Copenhagenize Design Company n.d.)
The Arrogance of Space – Paris

The Arrogance of Space – ParisSpace for cars
and used space

Space for peds
Peds crossing

Space for bikes
and used space“Dead” space
Buildings

Source: Copenhagenize Design Company.

These visualizations show how even in cities like Paris with ambitious goals for increasing cycling andwith massive numbers of pedestrians, most space remains allocated to motor vehicles that impose
the greatest share of negative externalities on society and the environment. With an estimated excess
of 70 percent of road space dedicated to motor traffic in most of the developed world’s cities,
there are ample opportunities for rebalancing.

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In the next paragraphs, the analysis points out a series of case studies of cities that have taken action
by recognizing the excess road space dedicated to motor traffic and the ample opportunities forrebalancing, and have implemented or are in the process of implementing a rebalancing of streets
through a multifunctional approach. These case studies illustrate different strategies and scales atwhich this paradigm shift is occurring, in order to draw lessons and recommendations for local andnational governments at a global scale.

2.2 Shifting from car space to public space: from tacticalurbanism to permanent interventions
In the past decade, numerous cities throughout the world have launched emblematic projects toreclaim street space from motor vehicles and create new public spaces. These projects often involvethe use of low-cost materials such as paint and planters to demarcate public spaces in areas withexcess pavement for parking or driving. This approach, known as tactical urbanism, allows for a swift
shift in the use of a space.
The temporary nature of tactical urbanism interventions provides a valuable opportunity to measure
how well the space performs its intended purposes and to gauge how users, local residents andbusinesses feel about the space. This information allows adjustments to made before a possible
permanent implementation and can provide important lessons for replicating similar projects in otherlocations. Although not all tactical urbanism projects move beyond the temporary trial anddemonstration phases, this approach has, in numerous cases, catalyzed urban transformation and led
to successful changes in many urban spaces, both iconic and commonplace.
The case of New York City provides useful lessons on how to undertake such a transformation.
Tackling the transformation of emblematic spaces, such as Times Square, can pose significant
challenges, but successful projects involving such significant spaces can lend credibility to scaling up
similar initiatives citywide.
Several important steps should be taken prior to implementation: gathering data on the space andpeople’s interactions with it can help to justify a project and evaluate its subsequent impact. Useful data
may include information on traffic safety, local air pollution, and users’ satisfaction with the spaces,
among many other possible measures.
Another critical step in advance of implementation is to undertake intense stakeholder and community
engagement. Attempting to change long-established uses, even if research indicates that the projectwill be beneficial, will inevitably provoke some resistance. Engagement can offer opportunities tointegrate community feedback into the design of the project, alleviate the concerns of somestakeholders, and, if possible, enlist active stakeholder support. In many cases, public spacetransformation projects have worked with local business districts, cultural institutions, or community
groups to help maintain and program activities for the transformed spaces.

Box 1. New York City andTransformation of Times SquaretheA particularly noteworthy example of this approach is New York City’s Times Square.
There was widespread skepticism and hostility from some constituents when aproposed plan to pedestrianize the iconic square was announced, but the city’s
position was helped considerably through data collection. First, working with Gehl

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Architects, the city studied the use of the streets comprising Times Square. Theirobservations showed that although 90 percent of the Square’s users werepedestrians, 89 percent of the street was allocated to road space, weakening theargument against reallocating space for pedestrians (Goldwin 2014).
The city also carefully monitored the impact of the Times Square project following
its implementation in 2009, and adjusted and refined the final design. The results
showed that travel times for motorists actually improved in some cases or were only
very modestly affected. Meanwhile, thanks to simplified intersections and shortenedcrossings introduced as part of the project, injuries of motorists, pedestrians andcyclists decreased substantially relative to the baseline. Observations also showedthat pedestrian numbers increased and 84 percent more people lingered in Times
Square and in nearby Herald Square, which received a similar treatment. Despite
initial opposition in some circles, the project has proved very popular: 74 percent of
New Yorkers polled one year after project implementation felt that the project hadsignificantly improved Times Square, and the number of daily pedestrians
increased from 356,000 prior to implementation to 480,000 (New York City
Department of Transportation 2010) (Sadik-Khan and Solomonow 2017). These
metrics, which demonstrated the initiative’s success from a mobility, public space,and safety perspective, helped to make the case for permanent changes(Sadik-Khan and Solomonow 2017).
New York City replicated projects similar to the pedestrianization of Times Square
on a smaller scale many times over throughout the city in subsequent years under
its Pedestrian Plaza program. In 2018, the New York City Department ofTransportation released a press statement to celebrate the tenth anniversary of thePedestrian Plaza program, noting that 74 plazas comprising nearly 13 hectares ofspace had been reclaimed as public spaces (New York City Department ofTransportation 2018).

2.3 Urban street transformation to address air-quality problems
Many European cities are undertaking ambitious urban transformation programs withmultifunctional street elements. The challenge driving these transformations has primarily been
the issue of poor air quality and the recognition that uncontrolled motor vehicle access to central
urban areas is largely to blame for this public health issue. Approaches have included restricting
motor vehicle access on major thoroughfares, as in Paris and Madrid, through the creation ofzones of limited motor-vehicle access in center cities, as in Oslo and Madrid, or the adoption of acitywide approach to limiting motor vehicle access on local streets and converting these spaces
into multifunctional spaces, as in Barcelona with its superblocks model.

Box 2. Paris and Reclaiming the Banks of
the Seine
As in New York City, Paris launched a similarly emblematic reclamation of public
space from motor vehicles. In 2014 the city began to tackle its dangerous ambient

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air-pollution levels. To this end, in 2016 the city banned all motor traffic on the lower
quays of the two-tier roadway running along the Right Bank of the Seine River,allocating €8 million to improve the space for pedestrians with seating and urban
greenery (Cathcart-Keays, The Guardian 2015). Despite positive impacts in terms ofimproving air quality and the creation of a large riverfront public space, the project
has received fierce opposition from car drivers. In 2018, a court ruled that the city’s
ban on cars on the riverfront was illegal, although the city’s administration has
vowed to fight for the public space and prevent the reversal of the space to an
urban thoroughfare (O’Sullivan, Court Rules Paris’s Car Ban is Illegal 2018).
Figure 3. Paris’s reclamation of public space along the Right Bank of the Seine River

Source: Xia AKA Hisaux

Despite these difficulties, the reclamation of the Seine is only one of a range ofpolicies that Paris has targeted to improve local air quality, such as the city’s
ambitious plans to expand cycling through the creation of a network of high-quality
bicycle facilities with 61 km of streets slated for improvements by 2020 (2020 : Paris,
capitale du vélo, les objectifs pour la Ville n.d.).

Box 3. Limiting Car Access in City Centers:
The Cases of Oslo and Madrid
Many cities have experimented with limited pedestrianization projects. Smaller
Dutch cities, such as Groningen, Delft and Houten, have long had areas with limited
or no access to motor vehicle traffic in their city centers. However, in recent years
there has been an increase in the scale of such projects and an increase in thenumber of major cities undertaking them. Such projects undertaken at aneighborhood scale provide a number of significant advantages: they reduce
traffic, noise and air pollution in urban centers and free up substantial space forpromoting sustainable mobility options like walking and cycling, for public space

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functions, and for environmental functions like creating more green space andplanting street trees.
Oslo is a notable example of this model. In 2015, the city announced ambitious
plans to restrict car access in much of the city center by 2019. The city
accompanied these plans with heavy investment in public transit and in improving
cycling conditions. Unlike some other major European cities, such as Amsterdam,
Copenhagen and Berlin, Oslo had relatively little bicycle infrastructure. In order toachieve the city’s stated goal of doubling cycling levels within a decade, it plans toremove around 60 km of on-street vehicle parking in the city center in order toimplement comfortable, wide bicycle facilities (Bliss 2018). There are also plans torepurpose some of the on-street parking into pocket parks, playgrounds or cycle
parking (Cathcart-Keays, The Guardian 2017) (Streetfilms 2017).
Madrid is implementing an even larger area of restricted access for private vehicles
in its city center. Beginning in November 2018, non-residents’ motor vehicles will bebanned from entering nearly the entirety of the city’s center. Although the city had
created a number of neighborhoods with limited car access beginning in 2005, the
new restrictions will double the size of the area with motor vehicle restrictions to 472
hectares (Constantini 2018). These restrictions cover a dense area with many
narrow, meandering streets that have always been ill-suited for motor vehicle traffic,
and will convert much of the city center into an area where walking and cycling
predominate and where additional space for place and environmental street
functions can be introduced.
Simultaneously, Madrid’s major center-city arterial, the Gran Vía, is undergoing asubstantial transformation through the removal of two of the four lanes presently
dedicated to the circulation of private cars and in their place adding space forpedestrians, for seating and for street trees (O’Sullivan, City Lab 2018). Together, theGran Via project and the soon-to-be implemented restrictions on private car
access seek to dramatically reduce motor vehicle traffic in the city center andpromote sustainable alternatives. Oslo and Madrid provide examples of howtransformations at the street and neighborhood scale can complement andreinforce one another. Changes to street layouts can be more impactful when they
are conceived as part of a larger neighborhood or citywide transformation, and theoutcomes of larger-scale initiatives, such as car-restricted zones, can be improvedby micro-scale, street-level interventions.

Box 4. A Citywide Approach: Barcelona’s
Superblocks
After consistently failing to meet EU-established air quality targets, and after
identifying car traffic as the primary cause for noise pollution in the city (The
Guardian 2016), the city of Barcelona prepared and adopted an ambitious new
mobility plan around a principal guiding concept: the superilles (superblocks). The
superblocks model is set to free up nearly 70 percent of street space, currently
used by motor vehicles, for different public space uses, simply by adopting a

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straightforward traffic management strategy. The idea is to restrict through-traffic in
the superblocks (about 400 x 400 meters), and by doing so transform the spaceinside the superblocks into low-speed zones (10 km/h) and shared space wheremotor vehicles should feel like guests rather than the owners of the space.
The lack of public green open spaces has also driven the new mobility plan, which,through urban mobility strategies, aims to increase by nearly threefold the public(green) space in the most equal and inclusive manner, without demolishing any
building or undertaking massive redevelopment efforts. The city has only 6.6 square
meters (m2) of green space per inhabitant, with less than two m2 per inhabitant incentral areas (compared to London’s 27, Amsterdam’s 87.5, or the WHO’ssuggested minimum of 9) (Bausells 2016). The entire superblocks plan represents
the largest street rebalancing and urban transformation experiment in the world
today. With the new mobility plan, the city aims to reduce car use by 21 percent andincrease active mobility and transit use. These sustainable mobility modes are
already seeing an increase in demand as the introduction of 300 km of new cycling
lanes is being implemented and a new orthogonal bus network has been put
in place.
The superblock model has already been implemented in two test sites in
L’Eixample (the district designed by Ildefons Cerdà in the 1850s), with a very modest
budget of less than US$60,000 per site. Local agencies estimate that Barcelona’s
entire traffic management pattern under the superblocks model could bereconfigured for less than US$60 million, which is less than one km of a typical tram
or metro project. It is estimated that superblocks will increase the numberof neighborhoods with acceptable air quality from 56 percent to 94 percent,thus increasing Barcelona’s livability by improving health equity for its citizens(Streetfilms 2018).
Figure 4. Barcelona’s Superblock concept
CURRENT SITUATIONPHASE 1. FUNCTIONAL SUPERBLOCKS

40%

53%

PHASE 2. URBAN SUPERBLOCKS

94%

Pedestrian space
Sidewalks, pedestrian priority streets, bpulevards, promenades
Accesible citizen space
Services area
Mixed area for parking, loading and unloading and pedestrian traffic

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Road hierarchy in the new Superblock model
CURRENT SITUATIONSUPERBLOCK MODEL

400 meters

BASIC NETWORK: 50 KM/H

SOLE RIGHT IN STREET SPACE: MOBILITYHIGHEST AIM: PEDESTRIAN

400 meters
CIRCULATINGLOCAL NETWORK: 10 KM/H VEHICLES DO
NOT PASS
THROUGH

EXERCISE ALL THE RIGHTS THAT THE CITY OFFERSHIGHEST AIM: ACTIVE CITIZEN

Source: BCNecologia.

2.4 Street transformation: a global phenomenon
Transformation of city streets is by no means limited to North America and Europe. Many of thesame approaches and driving factors have led to the undertaking of remarkable projects incities across the globe. In Seoul, a transformative urban public space was created through theremoval of a raised highway and the reclamation of the Cheonggyecheon stream, which had
been paved over decades earlier to accommodate the highway. Bogotá has been temporarilytransforming the use of city streets on a large scale since the 1970s through its much-emulated
Ciclovía program, which closes roughly 120 kilometers (kms) of city streets to motor vehicles
every Sunday for recreational purposes. Buenos Aires has also undertaken a range of projects
aimed at both the permanent and temporary transformation of urban streets, several of which
are described below.

Box
5.
BuenosAires
andTransformation of Urban StreetstheThe host of the inaugural Urban 20 Summit, Buenos Aires has promoted a numberof significant projects with a multifunctional street paradigm that prioritizes thesafety and convenience of sustainable transportation modes, discourages the useof private cars, and increases the quantity and quality of public spaces. These
projects include the city’s Plan Microcentro and Plan Prioridad Peatón, which
created an area with improved pedestrian amenities, restricted private vehicle
access, and the construction of an extensive network of protected bicycle lanes.

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The plan focused on a roughly one square kilometer (km2) in the central area of
Buenos Aires with a high concentration of offices, businesses, and government
administrative services. The plan, which was launched in 2013, called for a restriction
on private cars entering the area, the implementation of 5.5 km of bicycle facilities,
and the leveling of sidewalks on several key streets to create more space forpedestrians, additional urban street furniture, and the planting of trees. Sidewalks
on 33 city blocks were eventually made level with the street, and motor vehicle
speeds within the area were limited to 10 km/h. These efforts substantially improved
the pedestrian experience in the area for the one million people who pass throughthe area on an average day (Buenos Aires Ciudad n.d.). As of 2018, there are plans
to more than double the area with restricted motor vehicle access by expanding toneighborhoods to the north, south and west of the existing Microcentro area (deAróstegui 2018).
Figure 5. Buenos Aires Microcentro Plan

Source: www.buenosaires.gob.ar/movilidad/caminandoporlaciudad/plan-microcentro

In 2009, the city also began to implement bicycle infrastructure on a large scale.
Buenos Aires currently has a network of 195 kms of protected bike lanes (Buenos
Aires Ciudad n.d.). In most cases, the implementation of these lanes involved thereallocation of street space from motor vehicles. In combination with the launch ofcity’s free Ecobici bike-share system, infrastructure investments contributed to anincrease in trips to work by bicycle from 0.4 percent prior to the interventions, to 3.5
percent in 2015, translating to an estimated 180,000 people traveling by bicycle daily(Escayol 2015).
Furthermore, Buenos Aires has been taking its first steps to rebalance street-space
allocation for all users, starting with the emblematic Calle Corrientes, home of thecity’s theater life. Sidewalks have been widened, and its traditional four lanes arebeing redistributed by closing two vehicle travel lanes at night, 3 allowing only
pedestrians and bicycles and encouraging locals and tourists to enjoy the public
space and the cultural climate of the theater district.

3

From Av Callao to Florida, from 7:00 pm to 2:00 am.
(http://www.buenosaires.gob.ar/noticias/la-calle-corrientes-se-transformara-en-peatonal-por-las-noches)

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Despite the positive impacts of these projects, the case of Buenos Aires highlights
a challenge that many urban centers face: regional coordination. Although the
projects presented above have had a positive impact, they are all concentrated in
the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, CABA),a densely populated urban area that is home to approximately three million people.
The roughly 12 million remaining residents of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area(Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires, AMBA) reside in 42 separate municipalities
that surround the CABA. At a regional scale, the development pattern in the past
several decades has favored dispersed, car-oriented growth for upper-income
populations residing in suburban developments. The AMBA’s fragmented
governance makes coordination of urbanization and mobility a challenge.
Consequently, there is pressing need for regional coordination to provide
sustainable alternatives to the car-dominant, inequitable development patterns
present in much of the metropolitan area.

Box 6. Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road
Safety (BIGRS) in 10 Cities
The tactical urbanism approach discussed above in the case of New York City has
been widely employed to bring about rapid, low-cost urban street transformation incities all over the globe. An excellent example of the diversity of cities implementing
this approach comes from the BIGRS.
In 2015, as part of the second phase of this initiative to reduce traffic fatalities andinjuries, ten cities were selected across three continents to receive comprehensive
technical assistance from the world’s leading road-safety organizations, including
support to implement the transformation of urban streets through tacticalurbanism. The selected cities—Accra, Addis Ababa, Bandung, Bangkok, Bogotá,
Fortaleza, Ho Chi Minh City, Mumbai, São Paulo, and Shanghai—have many
distinctions in terms of income, population, density, local culture, and their built
environments. However, the BIGRS program demonstrates that positive urban
street transformations can be truly global. Images from projects implemented in
Fortaleza, Brazil and Bogotá, Colombia are presented below.
Figure 6. Cidade da Gente Program, Deragão do Mar, Fortaleza, Brazil (left andbottom-right) and Plazoleta Program, Plaza Calle 80, Bogotá, Colombia (upper-right)

BeforeAfter

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Source: The Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI) at NACTO.

2.5 A new transportation paradigm: shared mobility
There is ample evidence of how shared mobility is becoming an important factor in therebalancing and reallocation of streets and public space, with the potential to maximize theefficiency of current excess capacity.
The past few years has seen outstanding growth in a range of shared mobility services. These
include bikeshare, which is operating in hundreds of cities, both with station-based models andincreasingly with dockless models. Electric bicycles, which are also progressively appearing inbikeshare systems, reduce the challenges posed by hilly terrain, and allow a wider range ofusers, such as older adults who may be unable to use a conventional bicycle, to take advantageof the benefits of bicycle mobility. Similar to dockless bikeshare, dockless electric scooters arealso beginning to appear in a large number of cities. These services add options and flexibility
to the panorama of urban mobility.
Carsharing and ride-hailing services also provide urban residents with additional alternatives
and reduce the need for private car ownership. Unlike mobility services, such as bikeshare or
scootershare, which are highly efficient in terms of the use of space, low emission, and, in thecase of bikeshare, provide opportunities for physical activity, carsharing and ride-hailing services
still present the same negative externalities as conventional cars. In fact, evidence suggests thatride-hailing services likely lead to more cars on the road, more trips, more kilometers driven, andconsequently more congestion and vehicle emissions (Clewlow and Gouri Shankar 2017).
New self-driving technologies coupled with shared mobility could provide considerable benefits
if appropriately managed. According to the International Transport Forum (ITF) report on sharedmobility, and building on the 2015 report Urban Mobility System Upgrade: How Shared
Self-driving Cars Could Change City Traffic, the research conducted shows the impacts of
replacing all car and bus trips in a city with mobility provided through fleets of shared vehicles.
Using Lisbon for the simulations based on real mobility and network data, when reassigning the
network using 100 percent shared taxis and taxi-buses congestion disappeared, 95 percent lessspace was required for public parking, the car fleet needed would be only 10 percent of theexisting fleet, and traffic emissions were reduced by one third.
The liberation of space dedicated to motor vehicle parking and travel lanes would considerably
reduce the often difficult trade-offs associated with reallocating street space, and create many
new opportunities to introduce public spaces and space for sustainable modes of

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transportation and environmental uses. Such radical shifts in street use have important
implications not only for planning but also for asset management. For instance, if former parking
spaces become additional sidewalk spaces, municipalities can play a role in programmingthese new public spaces with cultural activities or in leasing space for commercial purposes,
such as for sidewalk vendors or outdoor seating for restaurants. Revenues generated
by leasing this space could be reinvested in further street improvements and public
space activation.

“Despite the potential benefits presented by newtechnologies, regulation and guidance from local
and national governments will be key because atransition to self-driving mobility will present
significant challenges. The same study discussed
above found that if only 50 percent of the vehicle
fleet shifted to shared mobility vehicles, total vehicle
travel would increase between 30 and 90 percent,indicating the need for strong leadership to guidecities toward more optimal outcomes”.

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RECOMMENDATIONSIn order to take advantage of the full potential of streets, coordination among
government agencies will be key at the local, regional and national scales. Efforts totransform streets into drivers of positive change will also benefit from close
collaboration with local communities, private-sector stakeholders, andnon-traditional planning partners. In order to contribute to this paradigm shift, thefinal section of this paper presents a set of recommendations aimed at accelerating
the pace and scale of the transformation of urban landscapes through coordinatedaction and intervention at multiple levels.

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1. Data-driven approach
A first step toward unlocking the potential of streets as multifunctional spaces to improve
mobility, access to opportunities, public space, and environmental outcomes is to measure how
a street, plaza or neighborhood with the potential to be transformed is being used, and use
benchmarks at local and global levels. As shown in the New York City case study discussed inthis paper, those who wish to bring about change are well served by equipping themselves with data.
The methodology applied in the UN-Habitat Report Streets as Public Spaces and Drivers of
Urban Prosperity, which calculated the share of land dedicated to streets in 60 cities across theglobe, is a good starting point. It is also important to understand how existing public spaces are
distributed in the city and where there are inequalities in access to high-quality public space.
Even more important is understanding the area occupied by streets as a share of all public
spaces in a city and understanding the allocation of street space to mobility, place, andenvironmental functions. New remote-sensing technologies and open-source platforms andtools 4 could be deployed to carry out these assessments quickly and to track changes
over time.
The World Bank is currently developing a spatial analysis framework to assist multi-layered
geospatial diagnostics that could be applied in any city to determine gaps between
available public assets and their targets. This framework consists of five steps to assess: (i)how public spaces have been changed; (ii) how public spaces are distributed and interact withother land uses; (iii) how people are using public spaces; (iv) how spatial information can be used
to operate specific public-space projects; and (v) how spatial analyses can aid monitoring andcapacity building for cities. Each step will showcase a variety of tools developed by diverse
institutions, mainly by UN-Habitat and the European Space Agency, so that cities can choose a
set of tools that best suit their needs.

2. Institutional and jurisdictional coordination
Institutional coordination and collaboration is perhaps the key recommendation for a
multifunctional street paradigm to become common practice. This collaboration must occur
within cities themselves across public agencies. Departments of transportation, public works,
planning and zoning, parks and recreation, and transit operators all need to work in concert
because the design and use of multifunctional streets will likely involve all of them. These
agencies should overlay plans for pedestrian, bicycle, transit, public space, stormwater and4

Shared Streets (https://sharedstreets.io/) is one of the examples of a non-profit digital commons for thestreet. It is a data standard and a platform that serves as a launching pad for public–private
collaboration and a clearing house for data exchange to help communities around the world better
understand and manage their streets.

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urban greening projects to coordinate construction and tap into synergies that benefit
sustainable mobility and improve public space and environmental outcomes. City agencies
should also work with policy makers to reform zoning in order to encourage walking, cycling andtransit use and incentivize or require green building practices such as incorporating green
roofs, on-site green stormwater management, reducing impervious surfaces, and requiring tree
plantings as part of public benefits for development. Some city and metropolitan governments
around the world have already created offices of innovation as a silo-breaker strategy 5 that
could be emulated by others under the multifunctional street concept.
Fostering regional coordination and collaboration across jurisdictions is a related challenge.
Alternatives to private car use will be seriously undermined in metropolitan areas if coordination
between the central city and surrounding municipalities is absent. This coordination needs totake place not only in the planning of transportation networks but also in terms of supportive
land uses. National governments can play an important role in fostering this regional
coordination and funding and providing planning support for regional transportation projects,
including inter-urban rail, bus, and bicycle infrastructure, such as the numerous bicycle
connections between towns and cities in The Netherlands, or the Copenhagen and London
cycle superhighways.
Collaboration across different levels of government presents another key challenge. The controlof the road network in cities and their surrounding areas is usually distributed across different
levels of government. Consequently, the investment, maintenance and traffic management
roles in the road network are often highly dispersed. In order to redefine and implement aneffective public policy on rebalancing the street public space, coordination among theselevels of governments and institutions must exist.

3. Leadership and capacity building
Conducting a massive capacity-building effort to train public officials, professionals andpolicy makers in the new understanding of streets as multifunctional public spaces should
go hand in hand with the drive to forge closer collaborations. This capacity-building effort
across professional disciplines, institutions and jurisdictions will likely nurture new leadership as
public policies and the conceptualization of projects move toward the multifunctional
street paradigm.
The urban health movement presents a powerful point around which the disciplines ofhealth, environment, urban design and transportation planning can coalesce. This alternative
approach to traditional planning, which is heavily dictated by the level of service for car traffic
flow, can be used to show how the form and quality of urban landscapes is related to key

5

For example, the Office of Extraordinary Innovation for LA Metro (https://www.metro.net/projects/oei/) andthe Office of Innovation in SFMTA (https://www.sfmta.com/units/office-innovation), among others.

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concepts of human and environmental capital in cities. The example of Scotland is illustrative:
from a national perspective the government doubled the funding for walking and cycling after
concurring with the recent evidence that the most effective strategy to prevent health problems
was to induce more physical activity in the population (Sustrans 2018). From a development
perspective, the urban health movement provides an alternative means of identifying urban
interventions with potential to produce happier, healthier, more economically vibrant andprosperous communities and countries.

4. Guidelines and financial support
A sound policy strategy for multifunctional streets must be holistic and part of a broader
urban mobility plan with public-health and social-inclusion objectives, and with a clear
funding structure. This could be coordinated at a higher national government level, with clear
policy guidelines for different urban areas and street network hierarchy, including financing of
infrastructure not only for mass transit but also for sidewalks, street landscapes, protected bikelanes, and large-scale traffic calming initiatives to benefit the often-neglected users of active
mobility. Many national urban transport programs, matching grants or co-financing facilities at
the national or federal government levels must be updated to include or support interventions
that unlock the potential of streets as multifunctional spaces to improve mobility, access toopportunities, public space, health, and environmental outcomes.
Creating and adopting planning and design standards for multifunctional streets. Several of
the already available planning and design standards can be adopted to create national
multifunctional street planning and design guidelines. In parallel, clear goals and targets interms of improving the quantity and quality of inclusive, healthy streets or public spaces should
also be adopted as a national priority. Part of this process should include the introduction of anurban resilience strategy into the environmental function of the street, involving thereintroduction of urban greenery and the connection of natural areas and the public spaces ofa city.
Cost-benefit analyses (CBAs) and other methodologies for prioritization of investments
and budget allocation in public institutions should be revised to include a holistic approachfor multifunctional street interventions. This is a necessary step because CBAs havetraditionally favored projects aimed primarily at reducing traffic congestion and travel time formotorists by ignoring the negative externalities of car use (and hidden subsidies), including theincrease in average traveled distance, and failing to incorporate the numerous positive
externalities of more sustainable transportation options. Contributions to health and well-being
are critical elements of a CBA, but are yet to be included (with the occasional exception of traffic
accidents and air pollution). A more holistic assessment of the externalities associated withdifferent transportation modes can yield remarkably different results. For instance, anassessment of the impact of cycling and driving in Copenhagen (City of Copenhagen 2013),
which took into account such factors as health, security, travel times, and comfort, estimated thateach kilometer traveled by bicycle generated a societal gain of DKK$1.22 (about US$0.20), whereas

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each kilometer driven by car cost society DKK$ 1.13 (about US$0.18).

5. Embracing the new shared mobility paradigm
Shared mobility services are constantly growing in importance and present challenges andopportunities for existing and future uses of public spaces. Cities and national governments
should monitor these developments carefully and harness and encourage promising newservices. Conversely, other emerging shared-mobility services may require steering andregulation to ensure positive outcomes for cities.

6. Engage and empower local communities
An important opportunity to accelerate the scale and pace of this paradigm shift toward
streets as multi-use public spaces comes through the engagement and empowerment oflocal communities. The process of collaborating with local communities can build capacity andhelp to generate a sense of ownership that can propel and sustain the changes necessary totransform urban spaces.
Fred Kent, the founder of the Project for Public Spaces, stated, “If you build cities for cars andtraffic, you get cars and traffic. If you build cities for people and places, you get people andplaces.” Ultimately, the design and allocation of the three functions of streets—mobility, place,and environment—are key determinants of whether now and in the future we will build our cities
for cars or for people, thus shaping the quality of life, social inclusion, public health, sustainability,
and resilience.

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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Horacio Terraza for his content
contributions, as well as reviewers Jon Kher Kaw and Santiago
Ezequiel Arias of the World Bank; Soraya Azan of the CAF; andDaniel Rodriguez of the University of California at Berkeley forsharing their expertise and thoughtful critiques throughout thedevelopment of this paper.

Conctacts for this report
Felipe Targa+1 202 473 1424
ftarga@worldbank.org

Nicolás Estupiñán+54 (11) 4318 6457
nestupinan@caf.com

William Moose+1 704 796 9330
wmoose@worldbank.org

Carlos Mojica+1 202 623 3263
cmojica@iadb.org

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