| Artxibo OCR | The Guardian
Coronavirus outbreak
World cities turn their streets over to walkers and cyclists
From Berlin to Bogotá there are new footpaths and bike lanes - but not in London
A worker lays a temporary cycle lane on a main road in Berlin. Photograph: Annegret Hilse/Reuters
Agrowing number of cities around the world are temporarily reallocating road space from cars to
people on foot and on cycles to keep key workers moving and residents in coronavirus lockdown
healthy and active while socially distancing.
Limited urban park space and leisure trails are under increasing pressure, with many closed to
prevent the spread of coronavirus, further limiting urban dwellers’ access to outdoor space. While
traffic has dropped around the world, and with it nitrogen dioxide levels, there are widespread
concerns over a rise in speeding drivers endangering those walking and cycling.
Evidence suggests air pollution, including from exhaust fumes, significantly harms the survival
chances of those with Covid-19. With pedestrians crammed on to narrow pavements, and acres of
empty asphalt on roads, lower speed limits, filtering residential streets to prevent rat-running,
introducing emergency cycleways and expanding footpaths are among potential solutions.
Tabitha Combs, a lecturer at the University of North Carolina, is collating examples from around
the world, adding to growing calls for more such measures.
“No matter where a city is on the spectrum of supporting walking and bicycling, there are actions
that are within their reach, and precedents of those actions being implemented in peer cities around
the globe,” she says.
In Philadelphia officials closed 4.7 miles of Martin Luther King Jr Drive, a wide riverside
boulevard, to motor traffic on 20 March following an 1,100-strong petition, as leisure trails became
overwhelmed by residents seeking their daily exercise.
Minneapolis has closed part of its riverfront parkways to motor vehicles. Denver has introduced
pop-up cycling and walking lanes on 16th and 11th Avenues and roads around Sloan Lake to help
people socially distance while exercising. On Thursday, Oakland officials said they were planning
to close 74 miles of roads - 10% of the city’s total - to motor vehicles.
In Canada, Vancouver's park announced that Stanley Park is now cycling and walking only, as well
as the linked eastbound lane of Beach Avenue, to relieve congestion and stop visitors arriving by car
and parking dangerously, amid a 40% increase in park users. In Winnipeg, four streets are restricted
to cycling and walking from 8am-8pm daily, and in Calgary traffic lanes have been reallocated to
cycling.
Skaters wearing personal protective equipment on the seawall at Stanley Park in Vancouver. Photograph: Darryl
Dyck/AP
Like many cities, Budapest has seen a drop in bus use by almost 90%, with a 50% decrease in road
traffic. City officials have now planned a cycling network on main roads.
Sydney, Perth and Adelaide in Australia, Chapel Hill in the US and Calgary in Canada are among
the cities that have made pedestrian crossings automatic in some districts so that people do not have
to press a button.
In Berlin, a slew of streets have new, wide bike lanes in place of some motor vehicle lanes. Bogotá
has ambitiously replaced 35km of traffic lanes with new emergency bike lanes using temporary
cones, mirroring the Colombian capital’s TransMilenio bus rapid transit network, an alternative to
people using public transport. Workers adjust the lane width depending on usage.
A new temporary cycle path in Berlin. Photograph: Annegret Hilse/Reuters
In late March the bicycle mayor of Mexico City proposed 130km of temporary bike lanes. In the
meantime, a 1.7km temporary lane, running 8am-7pm, has been installed on a major thoroughfare.
In the UK, however, it is a very different picture. In London, where traffic has dropped by 63% on
main roads, walking and cycling commissioner Will Norman says emergency bike routes on the
city’s arterial roads would not protect cyclists without complex junction improvements, which
would require construction workers to travel during lockdown.
Cycling UK’s policy director, Roger Geffen, has suggested junctions could be redesigned while
roads are quieter, saying temporary cycling infrastructure “provides a good experience to new
commuters, while claiming that kerb space when it’s not under pressure and not as disruptive to
make changes”.
Hackney council in east London is the first UK local authority openly planning to temporarily
“filter” its streets, using bollards and planters to prevent rat-running while maintaining access for
emergency vehicles and residents. Councillor Jon Burke says it will decide which streets to filter on
20 April, before starting work.
Burke told the Guardian pedestrians stepping into the road to socially distance from one another are
put at risk by speeding drivers, whose number appears to be increasing during the lockdown. He
says construction workers can operate while socially distancing, and it is one sector with excess
capacity during the pandemic.
We are running around making sure vulnerable people have enough food but we aren’t doing
something about the 40,000 people that are dying each year because of air pollution,” he says. “We
haven’t got weeks to deliver it, we need to deliver it now, because this crisis is happening now.”
Dr Rachel Aldred, reader in transport at the University of Westminster, says the UK could learn
from other countries. “It feels like they are treating [cycling] like a proper mode of transport and we
are just fumbling around. There’s no guidance from the government... I think if they can manage it
in Bogotá, which is a very complicated megacity with a lot of issues, you could imagine London
doing similar,” she said, adding that much of the planning could be done remotely.
Transport engineer Brian Deegan says 20mph streets, bikes for key workers, and “core corridor”
emergency cycle routes would help more essential staff cycle, while removing guard rails on
pavements and extending pedestrian space using traffic cones would help those on foot. The
London Cycling Campaign has also come up with short medium and long-term proposals to
improve active travel in the capital during the crisis. | |
