Keep Moving: Sustainable Mobility After the Pandemic

This briefing focuses on COVID-19’s effect on urban planning, and suggests that a 15-minute city vision be adopted—where residents can access most daily needs within a 15-minute walk or bicycle ride.

Document Highlights

Sustainable cities face very real challenges in a post-pandemic world. The essential objective for sustainable mobility remains unchanged: weaken the dependency of our cities on the personal automobile. COVID-19 has changed consumer behaviour, and a national active transportation strategy should build on the momentum generated during the pandemic and extend networks into neglected communities.

Keep Moving: Sustainable Mobility After the Pandemic focuses on urban planning that adopts a 15-minute city vision—where residents can access most daily needs within a 15-minute walk or bicycle ride—that encourages active transportation. To make mobility sustainable, we should adopt transit-oriented development based on this 15-minute idea, prioritize active transportation (such as walking or cycling), and allocate curb space away from on-street parking. In addition, capital and operating subsidies for public transit need to continue and to expand post-pandemic.