| Extracto del fichero OCR | Forbes
Apr 13, 2020
New Zealand First Country To Fund Pop-Up Bike Lanes, Widened Sidewalks
During Lockdown
Carlton Reid Senior Contributor
Transportation
I have been writing about transport for 30 years.
Temporarily protected bicycle lane on MiillerstraEe, Berlin. Photo: Paul Zinken/dpa (Photo by Paul Zinken/picture
alliance via Getty Images)
Cities as diverse as Berlin and Bogotá are using so-called “tactical urbanism” to
take road space from cars overnight and give it to people on foot and on bicycles
to keep key workers moving—safely—during lockdown. Now New Zealand has
become the first country to provide funding to make tactical urbanism into
official government policy during the coronavirus pandemic.
Tactical urbanism can involve many forms of interim improvements to the
public realm, including creating or widening sidewalks and bike lanes with
brightly painted concrete blocks and planters. New Zealand had been trialing
tactical urbanism sporadically before the pandemic, but now the national
government believes the time is ripe to roll out the technique on an emergency-
funded basis.
Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter has invited cities in New Zealand to apply
for 90% funding to widen sidewalks and carve out temporary cycleways,
measures that can be put in place in hours and days rather than the weeks and
months that it can often take to install such infrastructure.
Extra space for people will enable key workers and others to maintain two
meters of physical distance when walking or cycling.
“Walking and cycling are always great ways to move more people around towns
and cities because it is cheap, it takes less space on the roads and needs less
parking,” Genter told me by email, “plus it provides moderate exercise, it’s quiet
and doesn’t pollute the air or climate.”
Prior to the pandemic some cities New Zealand had already been improving conditions for cyclists and pedestrians.
This was Hutt Road in Wellington before a $9 million upgrade. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)
GETTY IMAGES
American-born Genter is a Green MP and came into politics from a previous
career as a transportation planner. An expert on parking policy, Genter was
appointed as Associate Minister of both Health and Transport in the coalition
government formed with the New Zealand First party and Green party after
Labour failed to win an outright majority in the 2017 general election.
“To stop the spread of COVID-19, more people are taking to quiet streets to walk
and cycle again,” says Genter.
“When we move out of the shutdown, and people start to travel a little more, we
can’t expect them to go back to crowded buses and trains at the same rate, and
people in city centers will need more space to distance themselves from others
physically.”
Cities are being invited to bid for cash from New Zealand’s Innovating Streets for
People fund; a cap on the budget for this fund has been lifted to enable monies to
flow from the New Zealand Transport Agency to cities interested in reshaping
their transport priorities.
Tactical urbanism tends to be cheap, especially compared to the billions of
dollars lavished on roads without almost a thought, as Genter knows well.
“Having a professional background in transport gives me a much better
understanding of why we have such high levels of car dependence in New
Zealand and the huge opportunity we have to do things better,” she says.
New Zealand transport minister Julie Anne Genter. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)
GETTY IMAGES
Genter has a Master’s degree in urban planning from Auckland University,
where she focused on transport economics. In the mid-2000s, she worked for 18
months as an urban planner in New Zealand for Australian engineering
consultancy Sinclair Knight Merz and then spent four years as a transport
planning consultant at MRCagney in Auckland.
“I [have] worked on a broad range of projects,” she tells me, “including a new
approach to parking and land use policy, economic evaluation of projects,
transport modeling, public transport, and network design.”
Genter was elected to the New Zealand Parliament for the Green Party in 2011.
New Zealand’s coalition government—led by the widely-admired Jacinda Ardern
—created four COVID-specific alert levels to cope with the spread of the novel
coronavirus. Since March 25, the country has been on the highest alert—Level
Four—with a full lockdown. Plans are now being evaluated for when the country
can be put on a Level Three alert, with some parts of the economy allowed to
reopen, including construction.
And it’s during Level Three that cities will be able to draw down funding for
tactical urbanism projects.
Genter says there’s a pent-up demand to get people moving, and not just in cars.
“Having spoken with city and regional councilors across the country, I can see
there is a lot of enthusiasm for [wider sidewalks and new bike lanes]—there will
be a real need to experiment and find new ways for people to exchange goods
and services, and get around at lower cost.”
“To me,” she adds, “[tactical urbanism is] about moving away from an approach
in transport engineering that has often been very theoretical, and relied on
models or inappropriate standards, to a more agile and empirical approach. We
can trial things in a low-cost way and make that part of the consultation, so
people and businesses can experience what it is like, and make that experience
and real-life data gathering part of the consultation to better inform decision
making.”
Genter believes that pop-up bike lanes and
temporarily widened sidewalks “will be so
successful that communities will want to
make them permanent.”
She stresses that making it easier and safer
for more people to walk and cycle has the
potential to bring enormous benefits to
households and businesses in New Zealand:
“Spending less money on imported cars and
petrol means people will have more money to
spend locally. It reduces the number of cars
on the road and the need for car parking.”
There are also clear health benefits: “30
minutes a day of moderate activity takes the
pressure off our health system, and means
busy commuters don’t have to find extra time
in their day to exercise,” she says.
Julie Anne Genter rode her bike during the 2011 General Election in New Zealand. (Photo by
Shane Wenzlick/Getty Images)
GETTY IMAGES
“Walking and cycling will not work for all trips, but the more we make it easy
and attractive for people to walk and cycle when they can, the greater the
benefits to the whole transport network, including those who need to drive.”
Genter’s embrace of tactical urbanism has been welcomed by city planning
consultant Brent Toderian, Vancouver’s former director of planning.
“New Zealand is the first national government to show strategic and proactive
leadership on how cities can rethink streets as space for safe and healthy
physical distancing,” he told me via email.
Toderian worked with Genter when he was a transportation advisor to the city of
Auckland and says, “she understands the strategic power of moves like this.”
He adds: “The actual cost of these smart moves is usually very small, with very
good resulting cost savings and return on investment.”
Moving swiftly to take tactical urbanism national is “as symbolic as it is
practical,” says Toderian.
“It shows the government understands the need for cities to think and act on
better public space during the pandemic, and wants to help. If nothing else, it
takes away one of the last excuses—that cities can’t afford to do it.” | |
