Walkable Cities: Ending the Automobile Reign

In the US, the car is an unkind king to its citizens. Cars mobilize, but also blast out pollutants and promote a sedentary and lonelier lifestyle. Conversely, walkable cities—where reaching local amenities on foot is both feasible and pleasant—bring myriad health and social benefits. Suburban sprawl is not conducive to walkability, but even US city centers are blighted by a proliferation of parking lots and arterial highways.  Congestion management, car-free infrastructure choices, and green space preservation are all policy tools that can promote pedestrianism.

Walkable cities have many benefits. Reducing the necessity of driving means less pollution and related sickness. Dense urban living increases fitness by promoting exercise and enabling walking as a mode of transport. Green areas, often part of more walkable neighborhoods, reduce urban heat, absorb carbon dioxide, and are aesthetically pleasing. Neighborhood green spaces restore attention and reduce stress and mental health issues. Moreover, being able to walk to local amenities is positively associated with increased social interactions, even when adjusting for the types of people who might choose to live in walkable areas.

Harnessing these benefits requires careful urban planning in both new and existing cities. In Europe, cities like Paris and Oxford model improvements on Carlos Moreno’s 15-Minute City. This concept advocates for city-dwellers to be able to access amenities such as shops, schools, clinics, parks, work, and culture within a 15-minute radius by walking, biking, or public transit. Paris was no stranger to car-clogged roads, but repurposing some streets—including a busy riverside corridor—as bike lanes or pedestrian areas has enabled car-free mobility that is safer and less polluted.

The 15-minute city has attracted criticism on both sides of the pond. Opponents claim these measures will trap people in their local area and remove freedoms associated with car ownership. Oxford’s attempted traffic-calming measures sparked conspiracy theories that people would become locked in their neighborhoods. Despite the public and individual benefits of these policies, a perceived loss of car freedom weighs heavily on drivers. Articulating the benefits of such policies is crucial for gaining public support.

Reducing driving infrastructure is critical for making US cities more walkable. Minimum parking requirements are a huge issue in many US cities: in Los Angeles, this has led to oversized parking lots, an ingrained driving culture, and underdeveloped affordable housing. Revoking these parking requirements could reduce car dependency and shrink distances between amenities. Chicago is advancing plans to eliminate minimum parking requirements, acknowledging the benefits of cutting development costs, adding design flexibility, and making cities denser and more walkable.

Noise and air pollution from cars also dissuade walking and cycling in large cities. Traffic-reduction policies are potential solutions. London’s Congestion Charge, a price-signal measure, has been in place since 2003 and has reduced congestion in the city center by 30%. Last year, London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone, a traffic-restriction measure, was expanded. This reduced the number of older, more polluting cars on the road by 45%. Revenue generated by these policies goes towards green public transit in the capital, another benefit for non-drivers.

However, these zones need to be designed carefully. Many Londoners opposed such measures despite air quality benefits for all due to personal costs. Owners of diesel and older petrol cars in the city’s inner boroughs must sell their vehicles or pay a daily fine to keep them. Mayor Sadiq Khan continues to face protests and intense criticism about the policy. Moreover, not all low-emission zones have been as successful: Madrid’s low-emission zone unexpectedly shifted traffic to outer zones rather than reducing it. Unintended consequences must be preempted to avoid similar design issues in other cities.

Measures to discourage driving should be accompanied by investments in alternatives, including bike lanes and accessible sidewalks. Redirecting urban resources towards development serving all citizens, not just drivers, is an equality necessity. Driving is also gendered: women are more likely to use public transit or walk, and wealthier households are more likely to own cars while being less likely to live in the most congested and polluted neighborhoods. Youth who cannot drive lose independence and space in car-centric cities. Seniors no longer able to drive would gain from zoning favoring more small, local amenities such as shops and health clinics, and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure improvements such as wider sidewalks and better crossings.

Transit systems should also be adapted to reduce car use and improve equity. Hub-and-spoke models, where transit routes run into the city center leaving poor links between outlying neighborhoods, increase driving. For example, in Chicago, with train lines heading straight into a small downtown loop and outer neighborhoods connected with each other only patchily by bus, driving is often the quickest and simplest option for non-downtown trips. This model also disproportionately impacts women and people of color, whose journeys differ more often from traditional commuting patterns – they are left with worse transit options. Adding better connections between outer towns, such as London’s new Superloop bus system, encourages public transit use for those trips.

Investing in green space also makes walking more attractive. The Public Trust Doctrine protects natural resources from private-use development in the US. This has been instrumental in preserving swathes of Chicago’s waterfront to maintain the vision of its lakefront parks remaining “forever open, clear, and free”. Green space preservation options should be explored in other cities, but on a smaller scale, edging sidewalks with flower beds and planting trees along bike paths are easier and cheaper ways to use existing space and make walks pleasant.

The final piece of the puzzle—improving proximity to amenities—comes from well-implemented urban zoning, which determines the balance of residential and commercial units. A study using GPS data from 40 million cell phones found that the average US resident makes only 14% of trips for daily consumption needs locally (within a 15-minute walk). However, areas with more local amenities were associated with more shorter trips. Historical zoning data from New York suggests this is a causal relationship. That said, this study also found that low-income residents experienced higher segregation and reduced social mobility when they made more journeys locally. The US has a history of infrastructure that racially segregates neighborhoods. From Robert Moses’ low bridges that kept buses, and thus lower-income New Yorkers, from accessing certain parks to Chicago’s Dan Ryan Expressway which physically reinforced racial neighborhood divides, policymakers and planners must learn from the past and ensure 15-minute cities are designed with easy permeability and good transit links between them.

Walkable urban spaces could improve the lives of the 80% of the US population that lives in urban areas. And, contrary to popular opinion, US voters wish they did not have to drive as much and would like more alternatives. Urban planners and policymakers should be bolder in scrapping car-centric planning rules and embracing pro-pedestrian policies. Using the extra space and funds created by removing parking lots and instigating congestion charges, they can implement more accessible infrastructure, more transit options, and more greenery while bearing in mind potential opposition, unintended consequences, and equity considerations. Urban denizens can show their support for such policies by writing to local officials, joining their City’s zoning or planning committee meetings, volunteering for sidewalk gardening, and voting for candidates who promote walkability.