Traffic & Congestion

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) released a guide in July urging local leaders to rethink how they set speed limits on city streets in a bid to prevent pedestrian deaths.

The guide, entitled "City Limits," said cities should consider setting default speed limits on many streets at once, designate slow zones in what they deem "sensitive areas" and set speed limits on major corridors by using studies that take into account density and activity level.

Those changes would represent a major shift from the traditional way of setting speed limits, which involves measuring 100 drivers traveling without traffic and setting the speed limit based on the 15th-fastest driver. That practice is known as the 85th percentile, which NACTO Program Manager Jenny O'Connell described in a statement as "an oversimplified and outdated method."

The guide comes as pedestrian fatalities continue to climb in the United States, painting a gloomy picture about the safety of roadways nationwide. Many traffic safety advocates blame a lack of secure road crossings, poor lighting at night and unsafe driving behaviors like speeding and distracted driving for the continued rise in fatalities.

NACTO is calling for a major policy shift away from the 85th percentile method, which came to prominence in transportation planning in the 1940s. The 85th percentile method worked on the basis that drivers act responsibly at all times based on research at the time, but it is no longer appropriate, O’Connell told Smart Cities Dive.

"That was based on an assumption that drivers act rationally and prudently and know how fast to go for the street conditions," O'Connell said. "And that's a flawed assumption. Drivers make decisions based on a lot of cues around them, and those cues aren't always based fully in rationality."

The novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has amplified those concerns about drivers' speeding. As congestion has dropped nationwide under stay-at-home orders, some cities have seen average speeds climb rapidly as those left on the roads have less concerns about driving slowly. During the week of March 13 to March 30, Los Angeles drivers, for example, increased their speeds up to 75% on average within a week.

NACTO hopes to take a more holistic approach to speed limit designation that allows planners to account for the needs of pedestrians, bicyclists and transit riders. That echoes a movement in many cities to reconsider how street space is allocated and designed post-COVID-19, especially as many have dabbled with closing streets to traffic altogether.

The changes also shine a light on the racial inequities present in American cities, which have been highlighted in recent months by the nationwide protests for racial justice. O'Connell noted the dangers of police stops for Black and Latinx drivers, who are often also subject to more stop-and-searches than White drivers and can be subject to negative interactions with the police. And she said there is other research that shows, for example, that drivers may be less inclined to stop for a person of color crossing the street than a White person.

But often, she said, cities rely on their police departments to enforce speed limits and encourage safer driving, rather than look at how areas like street design and policies like speed limits can instead have the same effect. "When we look at making our streets safer, we have to look at all the ways our streets are dangerous, rather than looking at each of these things in a silo," O'Connell said.

Other groups including Transportation for America have called for cities to focus less on how quickly cars can move along their streets, which in turn can create more congestion, and instead think about how streets can be accessible to every user. Such policy shifts to reduce speeds and enhance safety are starting to take root in various cities.

"A safe street is not one where safety is determined by how fast someone can comfortably drive, but rather one where a person can comfortably walk, ride a bike, and cross the street using a wheelchair," Ryan Noles, senior transportation planner for the City of Boulder, CO said in a statement released by NACTO. 

Since March, an eerie silence has rippled through U.S. public transit systems. While most transit is still operating to support essential workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the typical chatter of city dwellers and swarms of crowds at rush hour have virtually evaporated with falling ridership numbers.

As cities inch toward reopening, agencies are questioning how to regain the trust and loyalty of riders who fled public transit for alternative forms of transportation — like personal car use — in fear of crowds and infection. There are even worries that personal car usage will spike during recovery, as it did in Wuhan, China, which could lead to increased congestion and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

In what looks to be an uncertain future, public transit leaders are left to wonder: How do we return to "normal" and how can we prepare for a potential backlash of single-occupancy vehicles?

Getting back to basics

The first priority of transit agencies will be to return service levels close to where they were before the pandemic — which could be complicated by a dramatic drop in farebox revenues nationwide, leaving agencies strapped for cash.

As part of the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, Congress issued a $25 billion cash infusion for public transportation systems to fund operations, make up for lost revenue and sustain jobs. While many agencies expressed gratitude for the funding, it may not be enough. 

In a March report, TransitCenter estimated agencies will lose up to $38 billion annually due to lost fare revenue and additional coronavirus-related costs. While the financial ask may scare governments looking to balance other priorities, some experts say it is a crucial investment for the public.

"We must not forget that public transit is the mode the majority of people use around the world, particularly lower-middle class, low-income people, to get to their jobs, to get to essential services, education and so on," Anjali Mahendra, director of research at the World Resources Institute's (WRI) Ross Center For Sustainable Cities, said during an April webinar.

A key to rebuilding ridership, especially in lieu of further federal funding, will be rebuilding rider trust. This will take time and an effective communications strategy from agencies, especially when emphasizing steps to ensure sanitation and safety on vehicles. Transit agencies might take their lead from airlines, with Southwest among those releasing detailed plans of how they intend to keep aircraft clean and protect passengers from infection.

"We have to create a transit system that people want to use," Alice Bravo, director of Miami-Dade Transit, said during a recent webinar hosted by NewCities. "It's going to be based on their needs. We need to be efficient. Normally how we attract people to transit is we tell them you can save time. We have to see what the target market looks like in order to craft our message."

In the meantime, some experts have suggested experimenting with shuttle services to ease commuters back into using shared transit. Many tech giants in Silicon Valley already run shuttle services for employees who live far away from their offices, and with cities' help, those could serve a good middle ground.

"Companies that want to create safe environments [they] can control much better, and countries will have to support these businesses in order to help them reignite," Liad Itzhak, head of transportation management company HERE Mobility, told Smart Cities Dive.

Transit agencies have also experimented with safety measures on public transit, such as offering free bus rides in exchange for rear-door boarding in an effort to protect bus drivers, that could be carried on into the recovery phase of the pandemic.

"People take any mode of public transportation for convenience," James Gooch, head of marketing at fare payment platform company Masabi, told Smart Cities Dive. "These things that you can do to increase convenience are all going to help you attract more people to ride public transportation."​

Shovel-ready reluctance?

While recovering from the pandemic is the short-term priority, many leaders are starting to also think about the long-term impacts of recovery measures, particularly as it relates to infrastructure funding. 

In April, leading Democrats in the U.S. House reupped their infrastructure plan, known as the Moving Forward Framework, which was originally unveiled in January. The plan calls for a $105 billion investment in transit and $55 billion in rail.

During a recent conference call renewing that infrastructure push, House Democratic leaders said fixing broken and outdated infrastructure like bridges and roads should be a priority, as well as giving transit agencies more money to improve service and giving financial help to what they called "the most impactful projects."

For some, it brings back memories of the Great Recession and the major stimulus package passed at that time, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. That package allocated $8.4 billion for public transportation projects to aid job creation, but it came under fire for funding "old, irrelevant" infrastructure programs not meant for economic recovery, according to a report co-written by Transportation for America.

Instead of investing in areas like roads, the report urged more spending on public transportation projects amid the COVID-19 crisis as that spending can create jobs faster.

The House Democrats' plan also noted the importance of projects that can quickly get approvals and start on construction. Those projects have been described as "shovel-ready," a term coined in the 2009 stimulus and derided by some critics as promoting ineffective work that does not create the intended jobs.

While there is some excitement about the possibilities to build out new infrastructure, Ani Dasgupta, global director of WRI's Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, emphasized that "shovel-ready" projects are not the solution.

"I will shoot myself in the head if I hear 'shovel-ready' one more time, because it means we'll be doing the same as we have done for all these years," Dasgupta said on a late April webinar hosted by WRI.

That is a view echoed by some Congressional Republicans, who are deeply skeptical of a new infrastructure push and "shovel-ready" projects. 

"We know now that 'shovel-ready' doesn’t work, and that more effective ways to get federal funding into projects and creating jobs is by speeding up the project permitting process and funneling available funding through good existing programs, such as the Federal-Aid Highway Program and the Airport Improvement Program," Rep. Sam Graves, R-MO, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said in an April statement.

A new hope

If an infrastructure package is in the offing, there are calls already for new, innovative thinking on where the money could be spent. 

"How do we get people not just turning to more cars in cities and driving because they don't want to be near people?" asked Greg Billing, executive director of the Washington Area Bicycling Association (WABA), in an interview with Smart Cities Dive.

Brianne Eby, a senior policy analyst at the Eno Center for Transportation, warned during a webinar that the current reduction in traffic is just a short-term effect of the virus, and cities should not let up on pursuing initiatives, like congestion pricing, to curb the use of single-occupancy vehicles. There have been calls for any infrastructure investment to encourage alternative modes of transportation, such as cycling and walking, to combat a potential rise in car use. 

A growth of cycling in cities has been seen as positive, with some looking for ways to make the trend stick through investments in bike-friendly infrastructure and redesigned streets. While it may take time for city dwellers to significantly change their mobility habits and preferences, there is hope among some that investing now in those forms of mobility will help them to gain a bigger foothold in the future. 

"What we want to do is figure out how we can help create a bigger national constituency for safe streets so that this is not a trend that's a flash-in-the-pan during Covid, but a trend that has lasting effects across our streetscape," Brian No, head of public policy at mobility company Spin, said on an April webinar hosted by the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITSA).

Spin is among the shared scooter operators that have seen a collective dip in ridership during the pandemic, forcing some fleets to be temporarily removed from existing markets, though Spin President Euwyn Poon is confident the demand for shared scooters will rebound.

Ride-hailing has also fallen victim to plummeting ridership. Uber Pool and Lyft Line both temporarily shuttered in mid-March in a bid to help slow the spread of the infection between drivers and passengers, and Uber is even looking for new ways to re-employ drivers who cannot make a living off of the low demand for rides.

During the ITSA webinar, Chris Pangilinan, Uber's head of global policy for public transportation, and Lilly Shoup, senior director of policy and partnerships at Lyft, agreed ride-hailing will see a resurgence once it is more safe.

"Coming out of this, there will be still a lot of demand for transportation that is economical, that is environmentally more sustainable than single-occupancy vehicles," Pangilinan said.

An increasing number of cities are looking to implement congestion pricing in a bid to cut car traffic and fund investment in other transportation infrastructure. New York is slated to be the first U.S. city to toll drivers in a portion of lower Manhattan, while others including Los Angeles and Seattle are in various stages of studying their own schemes.

As more cities look to congestion pricing, the Eno Center for Transportation released a report with 10 principles it says leaders should follow when developing and implementing their own programs. Those principles cover areas such as equity, exemptions, partnerships and where revenues should be spent.

Eno said that while the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic may have city leaders worried about pursuing congestion pricing, the pandemic should also "strengthen reasons" for the solution, as it can help transit make up its funding shortfall and prevent increased congestion on city streets as the economy returns to normal.

Smart Cities Dive has summarized the report’s key findings below.

1. Communicate a clear purpose 

City leaders should set out a "bold vision and rationale" for why they want to implement congestion pricing, Eno said. If residents are informed from the start about why congestion pricing is being put in place and which problems it is addressing, there will be much more community buy-in, the group said.

2. Decide early how to spend the money

It may be tempting for cities to use congestion pricing revenues for plugging other budgetary holes, especially in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, but local leaders must show a "specific and direct connection between how the revenue is raised and how it is spent," the report said.

Many cities see the projected revenue as a way to support other modes of transportation and bolster infrastructure. And while Eno said channels for revenue spending can change over time, there must be a clear direction where it will be spent to properly highlight its effects.

3. Provide choices by improving mobility options

While there will inevitably be drivers willing to pay a congestion charge in order to use a personal vehicle, Eno advised city leaders to bolster alternative options like transit when the pricing scheme comes in. With this will come a need to plan for additional capacity on transit, Eno said, in preparation for a shift in ridership.

4. Ensure congestion pricing is equitable

Equity should be at the "heart" of congestion pricing strategies, Eno said. This starts with bringing on a diverse set of stakeholders while planning, and being deliberate about using data to analyze and mitigate any disproportionate impacts of the pricing plan on vulnerable populations.

5. Build cross-sector partnerships

The report recommends cities build "broad civic, corporate, and political support" when putting together a congestion pricing plan. This includes engaging with the private sector, nonprofits, community groups and residents to help “normalize the concept” of congestion pricing.

6. Be transparent and strategic in communication

Cities should use "clear, concise messaging" to inform residents on the benefits of congestion pricing, and to alleviate any concerns or complexities, Eno said. Communication must be tailored to the various types of travelers and stakeholders that will be affected and begin before the plan is implemented.

7. Lay strong groundwork

Before cities implement congestion pricing, Eno recommended gathering stakeholders to "develop a deeper understanding of the problems to be addressed." The group said pilot projects or initiatives to address parking or curbside use can help prompt discussions about congestion pricing as people see the benefits or use cases.

8. Be transparent with performance targets

Cities must monitor the performance of a congestion pricing policy and be fully transparent in both its goals and the data it collects, Eno said. They must commit to that monitoring early so the scheme's stakeholders can build trust throughout the process.

9. Limit exemptions to essential services

A major point of contention in New York’s congestion pricing scheme has been around which vehicles will be exempt from the tolls. Eno's report said those exemptions should be limited to emergency vehicles.

The report said cities could consider discounts for some drivers, like those with electric vehicles (EV), but such discounts must have sunset clauses and only be put in place after deep analysis.

10. Be nimble

When planning such a system, Eno said policymakers should focus on the problems they are trying to solve first, before even embracing a congestion fee structure. Once a congestion pricing scheme is enacted, the report calls on city and regional leaders to be flexible and adapt it to changing conditions as needed. 

As governments have enacted stay-at-home orders to stem the COVID-19 outbreak, once-packed urban streets have seen a stark reduction in cars. Now, cities are seizing that opportunity to open the pavement up to pedestrians.

To some advocates, street closures are a silver lining to the public health crisis: a chance to see what urban streets can do without cars on them. It could even lend more momentum to the car-free streets movement that has grown since San Francisco officially remade Market Street into a pedestrian promenade in January, inspiring cities like New York and Denver to experiment with the concept.

Pedestrian-focused street design has long been a staple in European cities, but experts say implementing such a change in the U.S. requires factors that don’t always exist in its car-centric cities. Jason Thompson, a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne, recently analyzed the design of 1,700 cities and found the U.S. tended to have sparser road networks with less transit — conditions that do not lend themselves to car-free streets.

"They also work best in 'compact' cities where lots of people live nearby in medium to high-density apartments and are able to make more frequent, smaller purchases for their daily living," Thompson told Smart Cities Dive in an email. "There are sections … of cities that lend themselves to car-free streets, but they are overwhelmingly in inner-urban areas that make up a tiny proportion of the overall land-mass."

How can U.S. cities better position themselves for car-free streets? Creating such environments can mean infrastructure changes to physically transform the pavement and implement forward-thinking dynamic designs. But most of all, it means a mindset shift.

“It requires thinking that we’re not just moving vehicles, but moving people," Elizabeth Deakin, professor emerita of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley, told Smart Cities Dive. "It changes the calculus, you start to think more about safety and public health in how policies are done. With changing generations and changing mixes of training, we have more people realizing that these options exist."

How San Francisco made it work

The idea of making Market Street more pedestrian friendly had been kicking around San Francisco for decades, but started picking up steam in 2009 when the city began exploring how to reshape the corridor, which runs through the center of the city. 

Geeti Silwal, an urban planner with the firm Perkins and Will and a key planner on the Market Street project, said the initial goal was not to remove cars entirely, but rather minimize their right of way to create something like a "promenade where people want to stroll and take in the whole city."

"We were thinking how to make sure this is a place that is loved and is a destination," Silwal told Smart Cities Dive. "We were looking at how to minimize carbon intensive modes, prioritize pedestrians and have a wider public area."

Because Market Street is a main artery, there was concern that limiting car traffic could create congestion elsewhere. The city ran experiments, creating trial traffic diversions and parceling out more bike infrastructure to see how citizens reacted. Those experiments made clear that a car-free environment could work, and in 2017 San Francisco announced plans to shut off a two-mile stretch of the street to all but commercial vehicles, TNCs and transit.

However, it’s not as easy as blocking of the cars. Making a truly pedestrian-friendly space on Market Street required sidewalk expansions, transit redesigns and installations of public art. Buses and streetcars were moved to the center lanes, and the bike lane was widened and cordoned off with benches and railings. The city integrated new trees and biodiversity, as well as furniture that could create a unified design. Even sightlines were rethought to improve wayfinding, Silwal said.

"We were thinking of how to make this street kind of a living room and a place people would enjoy," she said. Already, multimodal ridership has increased; the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency found bike ridership on the corridor jumped 20% the day after cars were off the street, and Populus reported that ridership of Spin scooters was up 30% in the first month of Market Street being car-free.

Elsewhere, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock announced a portion of a downtown street in front of City Hall would be shut off to cars starting in May. The redesigned Bannock Street, Hancock said, "expands a civic space we are already very proud of into a more welcoming gathering place for generations to come."

Even though that small stretch of the street already sits next to a public park and is frequently shut down for civic events, the city still had to do extensive analysis to study how traffic would be impacted by a permanent closure. Jennifer Hillhouse, director of transportation and mobility planning for the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, said the city decided there were enough alternatives to not add to congestion.

Now the city is exploring how to signal to residents that this is more than a traditional street. In the short term, that will mean new planters and public art, as well as new striping on the pavement, but the city is also soliciting ideas for a long-term vision that will reconstruct the space — ideas that could be used elsewhere in the city. 

"We're working to transform our streets to reduce conflict," Hillhouse said. That's included bumping out curbs on some busy streets and reducing left turns in some areas to make them more pedestrian friendly. "It presents a lot of opportunity to think about streets for people and not just for cars."

When cars come back

The failure of some pedestrian-only areas in the U.S. shows the limits to the philosophy.

In 2016, Fresno, CA shut down its Fulton Street pedestrian mall, removing the fountains and benches designed for shoppers. In that same year, Buffalo, NY revived its Main Street neighborhood by restoring traffic to some areas. Even with slow speeds (cars are limited to 15 mph) and some portions still being shut off to traffic, Mayor Byron Brown said "we are seeing Main Street rise again" because of the cars, according to the Buffalo News. 

In both cities, the pedestrian malls had been notoriously vast and empty, rather than feeling like vibrant corridors. It’s a sign that not every street can be comfortably transformed, especially wide, high-speed streets that haven’t traditionally been friendly to pedestrians. 

Thompson of the University of Melbourne said businesses and housing also determine whether a car-free environment can succeed. It helps to have an "interesting" street, and retailers that are "generally boutique or smaller versions of bigger retail stores where people expect to be able to walk / ride home with their purchases and not load 100 lbs of furniture or groceries home again."

Dynamic pavement creates new possibilities

Looking forward, some planners think any block could go car-free with just the flip of a switch. Sidewalk Labs, Alphabet’s urban innovation offshoot, has pitched a set of design principles that would reimagine streets for a multimodal future, tailoring different streets for different modes. 

Under this vision, there would be four types of streets: "laneways" that serve pedestrians; "accessways" with a speed limit of 14 mph designed for cyclists; "transitways" that include buses and trains; and “boulevards" that would accommodate cars. The fastest streets for cars would largely be on the outside of urban centers, with cars only traveling down slower-speed streets when necessary. 

That, said Sidewalk Labs mobility lead Willa Ng, is a shift from a mindset that "every street should be as fast as possible," which is unsafe and an inefficient use of space.

“We generally think of streets by protecting modes from each other. We put up a barrier of parked cars, of curbs, of bollards to protect bikes from cars,” Ng told Smart Cities Dive. Her approach imagines "a hierarchy of speeds."

Acknowledging the infrastructure challenges that come with redesigning streets, Sidewalk Labs has looked for more dynamic technology. The company has partnered with French civil engineering firm Colas on a dynamic pavement that would use slabs with embedded LED lights to signal road use. 

For example, a street could be designed for cars during rush hour, but by simply switching the light signals, the pavement could be converted into a pedestrian alley. Likewise, sidewalk space could be temporarily designated as a pickup and dropoff zone with lighting cues. 

It’s a way to reclaim street space for different modes without the massive infrastructure changes that would come from expanding curbs or building new bike lanes. It's also emblematic of a broader mindset shift that sees planners rethinking whether streets and avenues could be designed for people rather than vehicles.

The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic could allow cities to rethink transit and infrastructure more broadly, and the popularity of car-free streets in some cities could raise their profile. 

"I do think Broadway in New York and Market Street are setting a precedent. If San Francisco can do it, should we do it?" Silwal said. "More and more there is a school of thought of let’s get this right, for streets that are about people and about connections."

The United States turned heads in February with its rejection of a global pledge to eliminate road deaths by 2050.

Of 140 countries in attendance at the Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in Stockholm, the U.S. was the only country that refused to sign the pledge, known as the Stockholm Declaration. Instead, it issued an uncredited statement on behalf of its delegation at the conference, disagreeing with select points in the multinational commitment.

The statement argued there is no link between road safety and issues like climate change or income inequality, and said the advent of autonomous vehicles (AVs) will be a major solution to road deaths and serious injuries. It also said the U.S. would continue to study the relationship between road safety and street design, but did not commit to additional steps to eliminate fatalities and injuries. 

Now, disappointed advocates are considering ways to make progress on national traffic safety initiatives in the apparent absence of federal leadership. 

'If not me, then who?'

Overall, transparency around who rejected the declaration — and the whereabouts of government leaders during the event — is limited. Only academics and nonprofit leaders participated on behalf of the U.S. There were no U.S. governmental figures listed as speakers, according to an analysis of the conference program. Conference organizers did not respond to Smart Cities Dive's requests for more information.

Officials at the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) also did not respond to Smart Cities Dive's requests for comment on the conference, information regarding attendance or clarity of the role USDOT played in drafting the U.S. delegation's statement.

Presley Connor, national College Advisory Council president at the safe driving advocacy group Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD), was a part of the U.S. delegation in Stockholm. She attended the ministerial conference and the preceding World Youth Assembly (WYA), which brought together young people from around the world to discuss road safety issues.

Jacob Smith, North American regional champion at Youth for Road Safety (YORS), was also in attendance at WYA and the ministerial conference in an effort to represent youth efforts around road safety. 

Both Connor and Smith said they did not see anyone from USDOT at the ministerial conference, which they felt was indicative of the lack of serious attention being paid to this issue at the highest levels of government.​ Connor said the U.S. statement to push back against some aspects of the pledge was presented to the delegation as a done deal rather than something that was crafted by those in attendance.

"I was at the assembly and they asked all the delegates to the front of the room to take a picture, so all the ministers and secretaries of transport, and I didn't see anyone," Smith told Smart Cities Dive. "I was looking for the U.S. and was like, 'Wow, where are our government officials?' We had others, like the private sector, but I was like, 'Where is our Department of Transportation?'"

This lack of federal representation around road safety is felt on the local level in some areas, with cities like Boston and West Palm Beach, FL taking the lead on traffic safety efforts, according to the Vision Zero Network. Federal Vision Zero policy has been introduced previously, but has failed to gain traction as of yet.

There also appears to be a groundswell among young road safety advocates to encourage the federal government to take more action. Connor said she and her youth colleagues will continue attending various upcoming road safety conferences to push this effort, though such events might be waylaid for some time due to the spread of the new coronavirus (COVID-19).

Youth representatives also plan to engage in partnerships wherever possible to encourage road safety, develop one-pagers to distribute as informational material and work closely with nonprofits and other organizations, Conner said. She also has her eye on a Vision Zero training in Stockholm later this year as a place to learn and bring back best practices, and said she is determined to step up and be an advocate and not leave it to anyone else.

"Someone's got to speak up for the youth and it's going to be me," Connor said. "Because if not me, then who?"

Intersectional issues

A key point of contention in the full Stockholm Declaration, as well as pledging to halve road deaths and serious injuries globally by 2030, was a recognition from the signatories that improving road safety will help the United Nations reach some of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to cut emissions.

The declaration itself called road deaths and injuries a "major development and public health problem that has broad social and economic consequences" and will "affect progress" towards achieving those SDGs. Meanwhile, a report released at the conference by the FIA Foundation called for a "transformation" of urban roads by encouraging low-emission modes and reducing speeds to make streets healthier.

Data demonstrates the importance of moving quickly to mitigate road deaths. In late February, the Governors Highway Safety Administration (GHSA) projected that in 2019, pedestrian deaths hit their highest rate since 1988. That projection of 6,590 pedestrian fatalities would be a 5% increase from 2018.

But the U.S. statement said that associating road safety with efforts to fight climate change, income inequality and global emissions "muddle our focus and detract attention from data driven scientific policies and programs that have successfully reduced fatalities on roadways." The statement added that those issues are "not directly related to road safety."

There are signs, however, that not all the U.S. delegation agreed with that position. Connor said the connections between those seemingly unrelated issues become clearer with a little thought.

"I hadn't really thought about this before I went, I admit," Connor said. "I was like, 'How does gender inequality relate to road safety issues?' Those seemed like two opposite ends of what I would say issues are. But when you talk to a man from Brazil and there are laws in place that a woman can only get off at certain bus stops because it's unsafe for her to get off at others, it really opens your eyes that all of this is really intertwined."

The U.S. delegation's statement said the biggest issues when it comes to traffic safety are "human error and behavioral factors," and said that more must be done to educate the public about those dangers. The statement said the U.S. "will continue to work closely with our state and local partners to implement evidence-based public education and targeted awareness campaigns."

Smith remains unconvinced by this focus on human error and is adamant that widening the understanding of how road safety impacts climate change and income inequality can help to reduce deaths and serious injuries.

"We do great with education, we do great with our data, but we don't really dive into analysis of our data understanding marginalized communities, understanding gender equity, understanding how this affects climate change, rural communities,"  Smith said. "It's embedded in our data on the federal level, so to have a statement saying there's no connection, means we're simply ignoring the connections."

Safety and the role of AVs

A section of the U.S. statement focused on the promise of AVs, which it says will be crucial to improving road safety — but the tech came under fire during the conference itself.

"This new technology can lead to a future in which vehicles increasingly help drivers avoid crashes," the U.S. statement reads. "And, especially important, it’s a future in which highway fatalities and injuries are significantly reduced."

By contrast, the Stockholm Declaration does not make explicit mention of AVs, but instead calls for "the development, application and deployment of existing and future technologies and other innovations." It places the emphasis on areas like safer street design, reducing road speeds and moving toward more sustainable modes of transportation.

The U.S. position echoes those who advocate for fast public rollout and adoption of AVs, including many leaders in Congress. Others, however, are not so sure.

In a statement, officials with the Vision Zero Network said leaders "cannot wait for the ‘holy grail’ of automated vehicles" to take action on road safety. Smith said the technology is not being distributed equitably and will only benefit the richest urban areas first.

"We are ascribing so much to the advancement of [Advanced Driving Assistance] systems and the future of AVs, but it's not even close to being equitable in our society," Smith said. "Technology can be a great tool to save lives, but that tool also is not equitable at all. If you're having an intervention in road safety, it has to be equitable or the people being most affected are not the lives you're actually saving."

In its statement, the U.S. said it is "continuing research to better understand the relationship between roadway design, traffic volumes, speed, and crash outcomes." But some are not convinced that is a good enough solution.

"The question [departments of transportation] are asking is how to move cars quickly," Transportation for America director Beth Osborne told Smart Cities Dive. "If you start from that's the question that they have to answer, of course you run into designs that are perilous to people outside of a car, because fast-moving cars are dangerous to people outside of a car in all circumstances."

Street design needs to be far less car-centric and governments need to be far less focused on the promise of AVs, Smith said. If there can be a change of thinking, which he said is being led at the city level, perhaps road deaths could be cut.

"There's Vision Zero cities like San Francisco and San Antonio, TX who are doing great work who are focusing in on those areas," Smith said. "But holistically from a federal level where we're getting this money to do the work, it is because we have created a transportation system that kills and we have spent centuries thinking that the best way for us to get from point A to point B is by having a car."

On April 15, nearly 60 vehicles were involved in a pileup on Chicago’s Kennedy Expressway during an early morning snowfall. The crash sent 14 people to area hospitals, making headlines for adding strain to an overwhelmed health care system. 

Icy roads were to blame for the incident but speed could have also been the culprit, Block Club Chicago reports. In fact, as most residents shelter in place and stay off roadways, Chicago metro-area highways speeds have increased 20%. 

And the Windy City isn’t the only place where people are driving with a lead foot. 

As more cities become "congestion-free" — something transportation planners once could only theorize about — urban roadways nationwide have experienced significantly faster speeds, potentially becoming more dangerous to pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers. ​

Seattle was one of the first cities to offer a preview of how the pandemic would impact traffic patterns. Trips to downtown Seattle decreased 36% on average the week of March 9 compared to normal rates. Average morning speeds on state highways and interstates increased by 15 mph, which was almost the rate of "free flow" or no congestion speeds, according to transportation analytics company INRIX. 

By the week of March 13 to March 20, INRIX noted significant increases in traffic speeds in Chicago, Los Angeles and other major cities as more people isolated at home. Los Angeles drivers increased speeds up to 75% on average within a week. And congestion more or less ceased to exist across the country. 

"COVID-19 has managed in three weeks to achieve what generations of planners and policymakers could not, it eliminated traffic congestion," INRIX transportation analyst Trevor Reed wrote in a blog post. 

As of April 26, total vehicle miles traveled decreased 92% in New York City, 75% in Chicago and 86% in San Francisco, according to big data mobility company StreetLight Data. Nationally, personal travel was down 41% the week of April 18 to April 24, according to INRIX.

'Whether people live or die is based largely on speed'

While less congested streets can produce a number of benefits including improved air quality and lowered greenhouse gas emissions, less traffic also goes hand-in-hand with higher speeds. 

Drivers are traveling significantly faster and at rates above the speed limit, according to INRIX spokesperson Mark Burfeind. 

The high speeds pose threats to pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers, particularly as some pedestrians and cyclists might feel more confident to use street space with fewer cars on the road.

"It really is speed that matters most," Vision Zero Network Founder and Executive Director Leah Shahum told Smart Cities Dive. "Whether people live or die is based largely on speed."

About 5% of pedestrians could die when struck by a vehicle moving at 20 mph at impact, but that number jumps to 40% for a vehicle traveling 30 mph; 80% for vehicles traveling 40 mph and almost 100% for a speed above 50 mph, according to research from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Before the pandemic, cities were already struggling to reduce traffic deaths and get a handle on their Vision Zero goals. Pedestrian and cyclist deaths in 2018 reached their highest rate since 1990, according to NHTSA.

Austin, TX experienced nearly triple the number of traffic deaths in January alone compared to the same time last year. Speed was the main cause of 24% of the city’s traffic crashes resulting in death from 2013-2017, and is one of the top four contributors to traffic fatalities along with drunk driving, distraction and lack of yielding, according to the City of Austin. 

Not all health crises are contagious; roadway crashes are another public health epidemic, Shahum said. "Traffic crashes are one of the biggest killers of people around the world and it is a preventable cause of death," she said. 

Crashes aren’t dropping at the same rate as traffic

So far, it appears there’s good reason to be concerned about car speeds. The crash rate in cities is not declining at the same rate as congestion, according to experts, and the severity of crashes appears to be worsening. 

"If you get rid of congestion, then the number of accidents decrease but the severity increases because they are going at a higher rate of speed in general," Bob Pishue, a transportation analyst at INRIX, told Smart Cities Dive. Nationally, the drop in driving has not fallen proportionally to the rate of crashes, according to Pishue​​. 

Chattanooga, TN had seen about a 30% to 50% decrease in traffic since mid-March, Blythe Bailey with the Chattanooga Department of Transportation told Smart Cities Dive. But the rate of crashes has not fallen at the same pace, he said.

Since the mayor issued a shelter-in-place order on March 13, Chattanooga drivers are traveling on average about 12 mph faster than normal, according to Smart City Director Kevin Comstock. The city has also experienced "a higher crash rate and a higher injury rate despite the reduction in traffic volume," ​he said via email.  

Austin, TX is experiencing a similar issue. The city's major intersections are seeing 50% fewer cars when comparing data from March to January and February. But the overall crash rate has only decreased 20% and serious injuries have jumped to 20%. 

"This data may indicate drivers who caused recent car crashes were driving at higher speeds," Lewis Leff, transportation safety officer for the City of Austin, said in a statement.

Envisioning a different future

As the economy starts to recover, there may be noticeable differences in travel patterns depending on regions.

"We’re questioning the status quo in a tragic way in many ways," Shahum said. "But it also can encourage us to reflect on what kind of future... we want."​

Car-free streets could be part of that future as cities from Oakland, CA to Philadelphia have led the way in opening their streets to pedestrians. Oakland’s "Slow Streets" movement involves 74 miles of roads with restricted access to vehicles. Neighbor San Francisco recently followed suit, temporarily closing a number of select streets to allow for social distancing. 

Today's congestion-free streets have allowed transportation planners and other experts to move beyond theory-based predictions about what streets would like without cars, according to Pishue​. They can now accurately assess some of those programs and policies based off data to make better decisions about what works best in moving people around cities.

Social distancing appeared to spark a 2020 explosion in cycling as city residents have sought out alternative transportation modes to stay mobile and active. Now, city leaders are exploring plans to make cycling safer in the short term, and maintain interest in the activity once COVID-19 subsides.

Cities including Philadelphia and Washington, DC have closed streets to vehicular traffic, a move advocates say should be retained once the worst of the pandemic is over. Meanwhile, in a global first, New Zealand funded cities' "pop-up" bike lanes and sidewalk widening projects, which is a "no brainer" solution for any city hoping to encourage cycling and repurpose streets during the pandemic, architect Vishaan Chakrabarti recently told Smart Cities Dive.

Advocates have pondered if similar infrastructure projects — or even more permanent solutions to reimagine mobility infrastructure — could be implemented to keep the uptick in cycling ridership. This presents challenges, however, as cities grapple with limited budgets and uncertainty regarding recovery.

But as summer approaches, the cycling craze will only persist. "People are biking, and people are stir-crazy," Greg Billing, executive director at the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA), told Smart Cities Dive.

Closing streets for bikes

Philadelphia was among the first to experiment with street closures last month when it closed off a stretch of Martin Luther King Drive, one of the city's three major thoroughfares, to vehicular traffic. Advocates of the decision said it came after an uptick of cycling in the city and worries about overcrowding on Philadelphia's trail network, which could have undermined social distancing policies.

While manual counting of cyclists was suspended due to the coronavirus, data showed that trails were becoming crowded, according to Randy LoBasso, policy manager at the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia. In a two-week period in early March, counters found that biking on one particular trail by the Schuylkill River was up 470% compared to the same period a year earlier, LoBasso said, giving advocates the ammunition to call for street closures.

That pop seems to have taken place elsewhere, too. On Twitter, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) said its counters showed bicycling and walking are up 72% statewide since mid-March.

MnDOT's counters show walking and bicycling up 72 percent statewide since mid-March. Drivers, remember to slow down and watch for people walking and bicycling. If you’re on a walk or bike ride, remember to keep a 6-foot space between yourself and others whenever possible. pic.twitter.com/lMvgCeo0th

— Minnesota Department of Transportation (@MnDOT) April 17, 2020

"It's one thing anecdotally to say, 'Oh, it looks like there's a lot of people on the trails, we should do something about that,' but in my experience if you can go to the city with hard data, then that speaks volumes," LoBasso told Smart Cities Dive.

He said the closure is having the desired effect, according to anecdotal evidence. "If people are going to be outside and it seems like a lot of people need to get outside, we might as well give them space to be outside

As congestion plummets, a limited number of cities have followed Philadelphia's lead. Oakland, CA took a bold step in April, dedicating 74 miles of streets to cars for cyclists and pedestrians to use amid social distancing measures. Denver and Minneapolis have also implemented street closures.

Even the nation's capital is prioritizing this trend. In early April, Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the National Park Service (NPS) and U.S. Park Police (USPP) would close sections of some streets to cars to make it easier for residents to use them for "essential exercise."

1/ Starting this week, the @NatlParkService and the United States Park Police (USPP) will close Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park and roads in Anacostia Park and Fort Dupont Park to vehicle traffic so that residents can access these roads for essential exercise.

— Mayor Muriel Bowser #StayHomeDC (@MayorBowser) April 12, 2020

"The streets are the largest consumption of public space in any city in the U.S.," Kyle Wagenschutz, director of local innovation at advocacy group PeopleForBikes, told Smart Cities Dive. "The public roadway is the No. 1 space owned by the city and controlled by the city ... [They] don't have to go through a lot of hurdles to change the way streets work, and they know that people are going to be coming outside."

Challenges and opposition

While cities slowly experiment with street closures, some advocates are encouraging more accelerated efforts to spread the trend nationwide.

"I wish it was a bigger trend," League of American Bicyclists Executive Director Bill Nesper told Smart Cities Dive. "I'm hoping that it becomes a bigger one… I'm surprised it isn't being done more quickly."​

But some opposition and obstacles stand in the way of making the practice mainstream. New York City, for example, experimented with an open streets policy for 11 days before Mayor Bill de Blasio said the initiative was not a "priority" and that it had to be done "the right way." 

De Blasio said at the time the concept was not workable in part because it required police officers to enforce traffic restrictions. With emergency vehicles fielding consistent calls for assistance amid COVID-19, public safety is an important consideration in making streets more inviting for bicyclists and pedestrians. But he did later change his tune and commit to 100 miles of open streets at some point soon, albeit with strict parameters to not interfere with first responders.

"Emergency vehicles right now are taking in more calls than they have on average every day," LoBasso said. "We don't want necessarily [to close streets that are] going to need to use a lot of police resources or that need to be constantly surveilled."

Cumbersome approval processes may also prevent cities from quickly closing streets. While DC is good at closing streets for one-off events like marathons or major political events, those are typically planned well in advance, Billing said. DC may need a more nimble approach to closing streets when appropriate opportunities arise.

"I think there will be more public buy-in to this idea that the streets could be used for things more than just moving and parking cars, and people are hopefully a little more open to that idea now," Billing said.

Widespread support of the open streets trend is also lacking, even at the mayoral level. A joint blog post by the National Motorists Association (NMA) and the Keep the US Moving (KUSM) group said cities should avoid "politicizing streets" with such closures, as it can "look unempathetic to what most of us are going through currently."

And in an opinion piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer, editor Abraham Gutman argued that expanding street closures could send the message that it is "OK to be outside," when the priority for residents' health should be staying inside to help prevent the spread of the infection through rigorous social distancing.

"The only signal that should come from government officials right now is: Stay at home, save lives," Gutman wrote. "The only way this nightmare of social isolation and pain — both worse for people losing their incomes, not to mention loved ones — ends is if everyone does their part. That means only necessary and cautious time outside."

This concern of COVID-19 spreading was also expressed in an open letter by Toronto Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa. She said closing traffic lanes could undermine social distancing guidelines and unintentionally encourage spread of the coronavirus.

"We do not want to inadvertently encourage people to leave their homes through opening streets which could result in higher pedestrian demand and social gathering," de Villa wrote.​

Maintaining the cycling uptick post-pandemic

While full pandemic recovery is a long way off, it appears some cities are thinking ahead to how the uptick in cycling can be maintained long-term.

Following a concerted effort from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to expand car-free spaces, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Director Jeffrey Tumlin said he and his staff are already looking at how streets can be re-designed once the shelter-in-place order finishes.

Something to look forward to: @sfmta_muni and Director @jeffreytumlin are already planning a rapid transformation of SF's streets to prioritize transit and cycling once shelter-in-place is over. pic.twitter.com/Gth2jksMMA

— Kyle Grochmal (@KCGrock) April 8, 2020

Filling any existing gaps between bike lane networks, in a bid to enhance safety, is one way to encourage more bicycling post-pandemic. Nesper said that act could make more casual cyclists feel safer on the streets, and simultaneously encourage car drivers to reduce their speeds.

LoBasso cautioned, however, that cycling advocates must not be seen as trying to take advantage of the pandemic to push their own agendas.

"I don't think that situations like this need to be exploited, but I think that when it's over we do need to have conversations with everybody to say, 'What did you do differently that you have brought over into your regular life?'" LoBasso said. "I get the feeling for a lot of people that's going to be riding a bike more."

And it shouldn’t take a global pandemic to force such a reckoning, Jacqueline Klopp, co-director of the Center for Sustainable Urban Development at Columbia University, told Smart Cities Dive. 

"It's so interesting to see the cycling going up," Klopp said. "It's so interesting to see in cities like Bogotá, where they've got people off the streets and they're just creating massive cycling lanes so that people can cycle and get to places where they need to go and be outside in the air and be separate from each other. Why aren't we putting more of our money into that kind of infrastructure anyway?"

It would be incumbent on residents to show their support for different infrastructure and street designs, especially if they want to make changes more permanent, John Siraut, economics director at Jacobs Engineering Group, said during a webinar hosted by nonprofit NewCities.

"We've seen cities already put in major improvements in cycling and walking, redistributed space from the road network," Siraut said. "And the question is, will citizens want that to be maintained going forward? Do they actually want to see a big reduction in vehicle use in our major cities? That could be the way public transit survives, because people are seeing the benefits of relatively car-free cities and lots of people would like to see that maintained going forward."

The current coronavirus pandemic has locked down nearly 4 billion people globally and has paralyzed most of the world's largest cities. The near standstill in which we find ourselves today is an unprecedented situation in the recent history of transport. Like any experience, we have to analyze the results and learn the necessary lessons.

The lockdown (or the social distancing alternative in some parts of the world) reminds us of the fundamental link between mobility, socio-economic development and the environment. For instance, while lockdowns occur and the GDPs of countries suffer, some areas are seeing a vast improvement in air quality.

Coronavirus gives us a masterclass: mobility of people drives wealth, with some negative externalities on our environment. After this crisis, urban mobility habits will likely be drastically changed around the globe.

Remote working, cycling may change mobility for good

Two trends with positive effects for the performance of mobility systems and for the environment could emerge: remote working and cycling.

The lockdown has forced many companies to develop systems for employees to work from home. After a short period of adaptation, employees who can work remotely are getting used to it and, with the pre-requisite of adapted tools and setup, are starting to experience what the Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom demonstrated: when possible, there is no productivity loss when working from home.

Even in a country like Japan where there is a strong culture of working long office hours, and where the "home-office days" set up in 2017 by the government to reduce congestion only had an 8.5% penetration rate, employees are finally starting to enjoy working from home. This uptake of working remotely will have a positive impact on congestion and pollution and positive effects could be measured just before the full lockdown.

On March 11, in the San Francisco Bay Area, across the Dumbarton Bridge linking East Bay commuters to Silicon Valley, the traffic was down 18% during rush hours compared to the previous week thanks to a number of large tech companies asking their employees to work from home. We could dream of a world where time lost in traffic jams in single-occupancy cars turns into productive work at home and family time.

The second positive effect is that cycling could dramatically increase. With more urban commuters afraid of taking public transport or hailing a cab or TNC, cycling has become a safe and healthy option.

Large American cities like New York, Seattle and Chicago hae experienced huge increases in bike ridership. In New York, on large streets, bike traffic increased by 50% in March compared to the previous year. The same effect is to be monitored in post-crisis China. The Institute for Transportation & Development Policy recently analyzed that many commuters in Guangzhou switched from transit to cycling and that the Beijing bike sharing systems saw a user increase of roughly 150%.

Public transit and shared mobility will be heavily challenged

These two positive effects should not hide the most probable outcome of the coronavirus crisis for urban mobility: an explosion of individual car trips. Social distancing is silently becoming the norm, and once full lockdown is over, public transit will most likely experience a large decrease in ridership due to health concerns.

Current trends in China give us a glimpse into this probable future. Congestion levels in Beijing, Shanghai or Shenzhen have already almost reached the historic levels of 2019, when metro passenger volumes are still very low (roughly -60% vs. 2019 levels). In Beijing, metro ridership dropped from a 26% modal share to a 14% modal share.

Furthermore, people will probably be very reluctant to carpool or to use shared vehicles such as bikes or e-scooters without increased sanitary measures. This impact will be even stronger with governments and public authorities prioritizing initiatives other than investing in public transportation in order to recover from the unprecedented economic crisis that is to come, likely deploying large recovery plans to help the automotive industry bounce back, which will in turn put more vehicles on our roads.

In China, some local governments have already announced measures in this direction: subsidies for new car purchases, limitations on the number of new licenses lifted. Dense and developed cities relying heavily on public transit and shared mobility will be the most impacted and could see, without any intervention from public authorities, congestion dramatically increase and productivity drop.

Urban mobility industry will be reshaped

Both the current immobility and the expected future changes in transportation preferences will hit the urban mobility industry very hard. Ride-hailing companies have drastically reduced their number of rides while micromobility operators have shut down in many cities. Bird recently slashed more than 400 employees in a two-minute video call.

Post-lockdown, shared mobility operators will probably face strong ridership issues. City residents will undoubtedly prefer walking instead of putting their hands on a shared e-scooter or a shared bike. Investments in the mobility field will probably slow down, and the time where car manufacturers invested billions of dollars in supporting existing operators or to launch their own service is probably over as survival of their core activities becomes top priority.

Small startups will be at risk, and especially the ones planning on a new round of fundraising. We can thus expect the mobility market to pursue its consolidation with larger and more prosperous players overcoming the crisis and being the winners of this episode. All these upcoming trends will result in less innovation and fewer new mobility services.

Preventing a long-term supremacy of solo car users

The forecasted scenario of the urban mobility landscape should ultimately lead to a drastic increase of solo-use of cars in cities, and thus a sharp increase in congestion, pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Mobility operators and public authorities need to anticipate this shift and act before urban transportation locks us down again.

Mobility operators do have some keys to maintain their ridership. Sanitary measures should be taken, and communication should be reinforced when it’s safe to commute with public transit or shared mobility options. Micromobility company Wheels recently announced that it will deploy e-bikes with self-cleaning handlebars and brake levers. Such innovations will help conserve riders.

While new sanitary rules may take time to be enforced, operators must uphold their responsibilities and invest in this new field of innovation. Sharing operators should think about launching subscription programs and allow rentals of scooters and bikes for half a day, a full day or a week. The Uber grading system could also be leveraged to reinforce trust in sanitary safety (e.g. giving 5 stars to drivers / riders wearing a mask). Such measures could also help maintain ridership.

But, to prevent a supremacy of the solo use of cars, cities and public authorities have to take action. The list of public policies to be implemented is long and differ between city archetypes. In cities with a high share of public transport, the focus should be reassuring people that it’s safe to use metros and buses again via a strong hygiene plan and massive communication.

In city centers, the development of bike lanes should be accelerated in order to reshape streets and squares to reduce the car footprint. Congestion pricing should be investigated sooner rather than later to diminish the attractiveness of the solo use of cars. In cities where cars were already the key component of the commuting landscape (Los Angeles, for example), congestion pricing should also be studied to promote carpooling, and working from home should be encouraged (if necessary, via tax incentives). It will also be critical that governments channel their support for the revival of car manufacturers into encouraging low-carbon vehicles.

Coming out of this crisis, it will be necessary to act as quickly as possible. The efforts of the last decade and the hopes of the next are at stake. If we fail, the economic power of cities could be remembered in history books as a 20th-century concept, with the 21st century really starting now.

The pandemic has upended public and private mobility services. Public transit is "hemorrhaging money" due to plummeting ridership while micromobility companies have pulled scooters and bikes from a number of cities, leaving some residents and essential workers to scramble for transportation options.

On a July webinar hosted by the Knight Foundation, mobility and smart city experts discussed the many transportation challenges spurred by the pandemic — as well as the wins and failures of cities and technology companies working to address those issues. 

Mobility wins

Cities have gotten creative in devising effective mobility solutions during the pandemic, with many becoming risk-takers, City of Oakland, CA Policy Director Warren Logan said on the webinar.

"I've been really encouraged by the fact that people are finally looking at the ways in which we use our rights of ways — our streets, our sidewalks, our parks — flexibly," he said. In Oakland, some of those decisions have been reflected in the city's "Slow Streets" initiative, which opened 74 miles of streets — almost 10% of the city’s roadways — to pedestrians for safely distanced foot and cycling traffic.

That creative, flexible solution was accompanied by a number of innovative efforts globally, launched since the onset of the pandemic in early March. Examples include:

• The City of Miami partnered with DHL Express and mobility logistics hub Reef Technology in May to pilot four low-powered e-assist cargo bikes to be used for deliveries throughout the city. And although the cargo bikes weren’t in direct response to the pandemic, they can be used to help mitigate curbside competition and pollution as more city residents turn to online shopping due to COVID-19. 
• After years of controversy and debate, the New York City Council voted in favor of legalizing e-scooters and e-bikes, something delivery workers have been penalized for using in the past. 
• New Zealand became the first country to fund tactical urbanism solutions as a government policy to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety. Transportation Minister Julie Anne Genter invited cities to apply for 90% funding to carve out more space for cyclists with solutions as simple as widened sidewalks or pop-up bike lanes.

Mobility pitfalls

Despite many of these experiments seeing success, some decisions made by public and private entities have fallen short of serving residents' transportation needs. For instance, the cities that saw micromobility fleets completely removed or reduced on city streets may have benefited from those shared mobility options.

"This would have been a really great time to double down on those types of technologies," Logan said, "But unfortunately, we’re seeing just the opposite."

Uber is one mobility company that received heavy criticism from the micromobility community for scrapping hundreds of JUMP e-bikes in May, during a time when many cities were experiencing a shortage of bike supplies amid a national cycling surge.

The delivery landscape has also posed new challenges. Companies within the venture-backed tech sector have made quick moves to scale up their food and grocery delivery services since January, according to Star City Group Founder Anthony Townsend. Amazon bought automated driving company Zoox in late June, while Uber acquired Postmates in early July in a move to rebalance its business. 

While Townsend touted many of these companies' initiatives as "remarkable," particularly those to deliver medicine or education materials during stay-at-home orders, he warned of the potential consequences of such consolidation. 

"At the same time, it’s been horrifying because you can see a lot of moves to...eventually take the whole 'Walmartification' of Main Street to a whole other level," he said. "As we see all these small businesses falling apart, we see these big players backed with big pockets, moving in to take over big parts of local economies and I don’t think that’s a good thing for cities over the long-run."

Stable, lasting partnerships needed

As residents increasingly depend on new technologies and initiatives to aid in times of emergency, partnerships have proven to be key in maintaining service for continued reliability. 

The City of Oakland has had a collaborative, open approach to working with tech companies, allowing them to provide the "pieces of the puzzle" that government and public agencies aren’t able to offer in terms of mobility, according to Logan. 

"[We] need to ensure that whatever is in the marketplace — whether its public, whether its private, whether its a partnership — that it’s stable and will last into the future no matter what changes may occur," he said.