Reclaiming Roadways amidst Pandemic: How American Cities are Moving beyond Multi-modalism to Public Placemaking

Keywords: multi-modalism, mobility justice, streets, public space, planning
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 42

Abstract

Movements to rethink streets for alternative transportation and sustainability have accelerated amidst pandemic to reclaim roadways as public spaces, which parallel evolving debates about the nature of transport and infrastructure beyond accessibility to mobility justice. And planners and geographers alike increasingly situate such issues in relation to social equity questions of “cities and streets for whom?” This paper inventories the ways major American cities are repurposing roadway spaces for car-free or car-limited mobility and sociality, asking: How are existing movements for multimodal accommodation being re-articulated through limited-access or fully pedestrianized streets? How may pandemic-driven experiments be institutionalized to serve broader-term livability and equity goals? We analyze publicly available data from the 100 largest U.S. cities to understand the interrelationship among the diverse policies that redesign streets for multi-modalism (e.g. Complete Streets, Vision Zero) and reclaim roadways for shared uses and public space (e.g. slow/open streets, shared/cafe streets, parklets). We find diverse yet converging strategies to shift streets from vehicle throughput and storage to shared and non-mobility uses, triggered by pandemic but increasingly formalized towards accessible and vibrant public spaces. Such re-imagination of public roadways, though limited, poses profound questions about the future of American mobility and urban life.