From Theory to Practice - Planning for Human Scale Mobility, 2024

Introduction to the Swedish Cycling Research Centre - Cykelcentrum

Welcome to today's webinar, on World Bicycling Day, hosted by the Swedish Cycling Research Centre, the Urban Cycling Institute and Ghent University.

What a bicycling day it is here in Stockholm! It is fantastic cycling weather and people are everywhere, on bikes. My name is Jones Karlström. I am the deputy director of the Swedish Cycling Research Centre. I'm so happy to have you all here today to celebrate World Bicycling Day. I think we have more than 568 registered participants, which is amazing.

The Swedish Cycling Research Centre, called Cykelcentrum, was commissioned to the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute by the Swedish Government in 2018. The cycling centre is part of the national strategy to increase cycling and make it safer to ride a bike in Sweden. The cycling centre works on establishing long-term interdisciplinary research and cooperation, as well as connecting research to the actual problems that the stakeholders struggle with.

The aim is to make cycling safer and more attractive. It's the fifth year in a row now that we are hosting a webinar on World Bicycling Day. But this year we asked our friends at the Urban Cycling Institute if they wanted to get on board and elevate this to the next level, both in terms of quality and in size of the webinar. Together, we are hosting this webinar “From Theory to Practice - Planning for a Human Scale, Mobility. With that said, I would like to introduce you to our second host. Welcome, Meredith.

Introduction to Urban Cycling Institute

Thank you Jones. I'm so happy to be here and to be co-hosting and co-organizing, with the Cykelcentrum.

My name is Meredith Glaser. I'm the CEO of Urban Cycling Institute, which is a research, education and professional development nonprofit, based in Amsterdam. Our mission is to accelerate sustainable mobility implementation by building the capacity of civic leaders and training a whole new generation of urban planners to rethink our transportation systems and to put people first.

I was also recently appointed, a professor of cycling, and holder of the chair of cycling at the Department of Geography at Ghent University. This is thanks to the endowment from the Flemish Ministry of Public Works and Minister Lydia Peters. I'm very happy to see that this will be going on until 2027. We are still finalizing the research agenda. We've just hired our first full-time scientific, researcher. We'll be moving forward with the chair of cycling.

Agenda

Jones Karlström: What a list of presenters we have! We have professor Carlos Moreno here in a few minutes. He will talk about the “15-minute City”.

After his presentation, we will have a very short break, and then we will have, a presentation from two important European cities, Barcelona and Milan. Sílvia Casorrán Martos, General Secretary of Cycling Cities Network in Spain, will present from Barcelona. And vice Mayor of Milan Arianna Censi will talk from Milan.

After that, we have a panel discussion on mechanisms of change with Doctor Luca Bertolini and Doctor Enrica Papa.

And like I said, after every presentation, we will turn on the chat so you can type your questions. The director of Cykelcentrum, Anna Niska, will help us pick out a few of them.

Professor Carlos Moreno - introduction

J Karlström: Professor Carlos Moreno is from the IAE Paris-Sorbonne, Sorbonne University. Professor Moreno will present the 15-minute City concept, a new global urban pathway towards a sustainable, liveable and inclusive city. Professor Moreno will also present the research behind it, as well as some practical examples from a few cities. He is the one who founded this concept.

Prof. Glaser: For many practitioners, it might be unclear what exactly does this mean for cities. How do we take, a very abstract concept, even though Carlos makes it as concrete as possible, even with a number, 15. But how can we bring this concept to the practice community with some key ideas for what it means for cities? How do policymakers and those who are actually on the ground, in public consultation, designing cities, how can we make this, relevant for them?

So, without further ado, I think Professor Carlos Moreno is on Jones. Professor Moreno, the stage is all yours.

Professor Carlos Moreno – The 15-minute City, presentation

Professor Carlos Moreno: Thank you. It's a great pleasure for me to share this with you, a presentation for evoking these 15 minutes to the concept. The concept, that is this recognition of proximity, was promoted by my team at the university in Paris. It's a great pleasure to deliver this presentation today, on June 3rd, the World Bicycle Day.

There is a very important transformation. A lot of cities, in particular Paris, embark on this new route to low-carbon mobility for pedestrians and cyclists. And we have a strong transformation of our different infrastructures, for transforming our public spaces, for delivering more than one thousand kilometres for biking, and developing a new, public policy for bike sharing, etcetera.

This presentation is oriented towards discussing the 15-minute City concept. But we need to go beyond this low carbon mobility. We must address 15 minutes to this twin concept, 30 minutes territory. Both concepts have become very popular to the young worldwide. My latest book, the 15-Minute City concept is dedicated to Jane Jacobs. Jane Jacobs was born on 4th May. I propose to the international community to dedicate the 4th May as Jane Jacobs’ Day, to underline the amazing commitment of Jacobs. She coined the Living City concept. Jane was a writer and activist as well.

She said, “Conscience is our ultimate weapon”. And I think that today we need to develop this, conscience and consciousness, to be aware that it is urgent to change our lifestyle radically, our work style. …capability, is one of the key elements for that. But this is not the only element for that. We need to be aware that this is not only a question of mobility. This is a question of our lifestyle in general, production, and consumption.

We face with our challenges for this century. They are very concrete issues, our global threats to our collective urban life, for our humanity. The first one, is climate emergency. This climate emergency is related to the massive urbanization present on our planet today, on all continents. Today, urbanization is present. With it, cities have become places for living for the majority of the population. Climate change, loss of biodiversity, and massive urbanization are intertwined. And this situation has created, amazing systemic impacts. It is at the heart of the problem, and cities are the key or the solution.

At this moment, today, Thursday, June 2024, on our planet we have 2 billion inhabitants so far, impacted by climate change, of sudden heat waves in Asia, in India in particular, in Latin America, Central America, and Mexico, climate change is not only a question of temperatures. Climate change is at the same time a question of the economic impact.

German researchers, colleagues of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, have recently published in the Nature Review a very excellent paper with an economic commitment to climate change.
In the current times, for the next decades, $38 trillion in damages each year provoked by climate change. For the usual business, a reduction of 19% of the yearly turnover, just for the usual business. I went to the USA two weeks ago to present my book. I went to New Orleans. Many years after, we have had the damages provoked … by Katrina, a category 5 hurricane (2005).

Recently, in October 2023, we had in Yucatan Acapulco the first hurricane category five. To rebuild Acapulco today, the global cost is more than $3.4 billion.

Three weeks ago in Dubai, in just 24 hours, we had the equivalent of almost two years of rain, almost $1 billion of damages and different infrastructures, and the cost of creating a sewage system, $22 billion.

Dear friends, and bike lovers, the question is to define this crucial point. What kind of city do we want to live in, today, tomorrow, and after tomorrow?

The fact is, that in the 21st century, we have been continuing to live with the model of the 20th century. In 1913, we had domestication of cars, produced by Mr. Henry Ford. For one country, 100 years, we have accepted to live in cities shaped by three major elements: oil, concrete, and cars. Our cities including today, have continued to be shaped by the Athens Charts, published in 1933. Led by the Swiss architect Le Corbusier, the father of modern architecture, the modern urbanism. Le Corbusier said, “The city that succeeds is the one that moves faster and shorter”.

This is the city that we have accepted to live in during the last 100 years. We have accepted the zoning. We have accepted the urban segregation, the urban fractures. We have accepted to leave it, to work under constant stress based on long distances, provoked by this strong … between our essential daily needs.

This is the skyline of my city, Paris, in the West, with the biggest corporate district built in Europe in 1962. At the same time, we have transformed the riverbank of the Seine River into an expressway, with car dependency, fossil fuels, and mass transportation in poor conditions during peak hours... The same skylines are present around the world. In South America, Buenos Aires skyline. In Asia, including in the country with the lowest density, Ulan Bator in Mongolia. This is a classical isochrone of a modern city. My friend … said in the foreword of one of my books, “Distance has become a vice. Long journeys have become the standard.”

And they said the quality of life has dropped in our cities. Beyond the economic inequality present in our cities, we have accepted in the 21st century two new injustices, the spatial injustice with the urban segregation, the urban fractures, the urban segmentation, the urban zonification. And we have accepted the temporal injustice, of spending a section of our time commuting, to lose our useful time.

I went to the USA two weeks ago. I worked with my colleagues at the Argonne National Laboratory. And this social vulnerability is today, an essential topic for misery, to identify the social cost, the economic cost of this segregation. Long distances are today one of the most relevant factors in the loss of productivity and in the loss of our high-quality societal life. Economic inequalities, temporal injustice, and spatial injustices are the set of social vulnerabilities that have collapsed our cities today.

I am not the first scientist to propose a new way of developing a humanistic urbanism. At the same time as Henry Ford produced the first two cars, a lot of thinkers and doers proposed an alternative model. From Clarence Ferry in the USA in 1923, with the Neighbour Unit, until my friend contemporary great urbanist Jan Gehl, with Cities for People, Torsten Hagerstrand, Time Geography, and at the centre the unforgettable Jane Jacobs. Jane Jacobs is the mother, the mother of our battles. Jane Jacobs when she coined the term Living Cities, said “The point of cities is to have anytime, anywhere, a multiplicity of choice without having to depend on a car”.

This is the question today. This is our challenge. With the 15-minute city for the high-density zones, and 30-minute territory for the medium and low-density zones - for the happy proximity - we have opened a massive new dialogue worldwide on urban models for generating new practices at a global scale. This happy proximity offers the urban world in crisis, the possibility to reconcile ecology, economy and social impact. Sustainability is the convergence towards having more liveable, ecological cities. But at the same time, we need to develop a more vibrant local economy and implement local activities to regenerate the relocalisation with a near … paradigm. To regenerate the social public, reweaving links to have a positive social impact and neighbours and neighbourhoods is essential.

When we proposed this concept for the first time in 2016, many people said, “Professor Moreno proposed a utopia”, because our normality is, having long distances for a job, for a wage, for study. Today, eight years later, this is a concrete reality in many places around the world. We have proposed this model of new urban social circularity for promoting this human-oriented urbanism in the legacy of Clarence Perry, Jane Jacobs, Torsten Hagerstrand, the new urbanism, Jan Gehl, with Cities for People.

Our scientific contribution is related to this circular model and speaks of essential functions. Each one with a different colour, to live in good conditions. But to live is not only to have a roof and four walls. George Simmel, a German sociologist in 1903 said, “To live is not only to have a roof and four walls. It is to have access to the services in a city.”

We need to have a good house, but we need to access other, more complete services: to work without a permanent long commute, to supply, to have a short … to promote the local materials, raw materials, to develop the local knowledge, skills, to care, to access medical services, mental and physical, to learn, to access education and culture, to enjoy it in public spaces without pollution, breathable with freshness, water.

In parallel with the six social functions, we have proposed three new indicators for the quality of life: my personal and family well-being, my collective sociability with my neighbours and work colleagues, and my ecological well-being, my CO2 footprint and togetherness with all the other people that live in my city. To this, we have proposed a high-quality societal living matrix.

For this social circularity, we have proposed to switch words from housing to habitability. That is the key word of our scientific contributions to have real habitability, to access the six social functions, and to break with one century of Le Corbusier paradigm and the Athens Chart. To mix colours, to mix two, three, four, five, and six functions, but not with a magic wand. Magic, by voting for a new local urban plan, and territorial plan for defining a theory for mixed colours in a polycentric way. To have more accessibility with short or low carbon distances, on foot, by bike, or by public transportation. With this polycentric organization, I propose a long-term, new, local and urban territorial plan. I propose we become the new painters of the 21st century, mixing the different colours and their social categories in a polycentric organization. The nickname for making a city of colours is “the Rainbow”. We are the new painters of this modernity, the painters of the rainbow of the high quality, societal life.

I am very happy to observe that this movement has become a global movement in Europe. The new program Driving Urban Transitions has defined, as the second item among three, the 15-minute city pathway. My colleagues at the Technical University of Munich, led by my friend Benjamin Büttner. They have developed a European program, and they have robust this document with the 15-minute city planning principles. I want to pay tribute to Benjamin and the team. Recently they published a book with 100 experiences of 15-minute cities in Europe. They have proposed these eight principles: proximity to essential services, organic density, massive mixed uses, quality for public spaces, efficient public transportation, active low-carbon mobility on foot or by bike - our community of bikers - inclusiveness for the human diversity and ubiquity for having access to services using digital technologies.

The 15-minute City, the 30-minute territory, and the higher proximity have many different nicknames today, around the world. In Utrecht the 10-minute city. The 20-minute territory in Scotland. The 20-minute city in Australia, in Melbourne. The vital districts in South America. We have created C40 cities, using UN-Habitat, a global movement for transforming this concept into reality. Today this is the rise of the 15-minute City with the commitment of local governments, mayors, metropolises, and regions to create new roadmaps and embrace this concept to change, from the 20th century to the 21st century paradigm.

After the Covid 19, we were impacted worldwide. In a few weeks, we had the strength to learn to work differently. We have observed a very strong transformation of work. With the new technologies, we have learned to mix new digital technologies to reduce our daily long commutes. The new keywords have emerged worldwide, localization, relocalization and nurturing. With the Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman, we started more than one year ago, a common work on the new economic geography for adapting the 21st century to this concept towards these sustainable cities in sustainable territory. In the convergence, the three imperatives are used, economic viability, ecological liveability, and social positive impact on human habitat worldwide. We have started this worldwide. The companion for a new urban and territorial habitability, based on this triple convergence. This is the core of our paradigm of proximity, to reduce our carbon footprint in our daily life, and to create more social interactions with the happy neighbourhood.

To develop a new urban economic model with the happy proximity for the 15-minute city, and 30-minute territory, I propose to reinvent the concept of the Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman, the new economic geography for joining the sustainable proximity, to reinvent in the 21st century the new economic geography of sustainable proximity. This is the convergence of the work of two Nobel Prize laureates, my friend Muhammad Yunus, awarded for this amazing contribution when he published in 2010 his book A World of Triple Zero – zero carbon, poverty, exclusion. Today, this is our journey dear friends. To be aware that we have accepted the unacceptable for almost seven decades, long commutes, single-function misused buildings, to lost social interactions.

With the 15-minute city, we wanted to create a new urban and territorial narrative. We have the opportunity today to create a new city business model, based on this strategic idea. A massive city of social category uses, with the proximities for a defined quality of life, focused on the development of local services in low carbon mobility. We have proposed, not only a theoretical concept, but we have proposed a concrete methodology for developing this concept in practice. We have proposed a methodology based on the scientific models of a young mathematician, and a computer science researcher. For that, we have developed this double methodology, quantitative and qualitative.

We have published our new white paper number three – The 15-minute City model – an innovative approach to measuring quality of life in urban settings”. The quantitative approach is to use data science, geospatial data analysis, multi-scalar studies, based on these high-quality associates and large indicators. With the macro analysis of a city, the analysis by neighbourhood, and the micro analysis by a street.

The second point is to develop the adaptive isochrone to involve the profile of inhabitants. Proximity is relative. Proximity in the 15-minute city is not the same for teenagers, a pregnant woman, a couple with or without children, or elderly people in good health or illnesses. We need to adapt the different isochrone to offer a large choice in the way of Jane Jacobs, without dependency on individual cars. The adaptive isochrones are the heart of our methodology. For that we have developed a deep pedagogic tool, the Proximities Fresk as creative workshops for empowering citizens, and listening to citizens and their empowerment.

We have today a powerful vision, to have proposed a methodology. We have, around the world, many different implementations going in the same direction. A Happy Proximity on different continents, not as a doxa, just as a framework for the adapted, for customizing this concept in the particular conditions geographical, political, social, economic and religious. This is in fact one of the keys to our success, to develop this massive mixed city, and to adapt to the particular context in Europe.

For two years, we have had the Urban Transitions Program for the sustainable future of cities. Today, we have more than 50 collaborative projects in Europe, and, with that, associated countries. In Paris, our Deputy Mayor David Belliard will present, after, the information about Paris. The most important is to have voted on the new Paris local government plan in May 2023 for proposing this happy proximity. The Mayor of Paris said the 15-minute city is the backbone of the New Paris Urban Policy for the next two decades. The Street for Kids has been a great success, transforming the totality of streets in front of schools into new mini-parks and opening the schoolyards during the weekend. To foster the local economy, or to promote local shops with the subsidiary company of the City of Paris, the commercial property of the City of Paris, to have the human scale commerce in the city.

For developing social housing, it is unacceptable to have, in the history of Paris, 42% of social housing in the west of Paris. In the work district, only 2.2% of social housing. For that, we need to develop this social-mix city to transform a building from a single-use to a mixed-use, developing the social-mix city and the new districts.

I want to invite you to visit Paris, the new Clichy-Batignolles district, Caserne de Reuilly, La Félicité, I will be your guide to see this amazing transformation. In this district, Clichy-Batignolles, 50% is social housing, 25% is the middle class, and 25% is homeowners. This is one of the transformations of the seventh district, 2.2% of social housing. We have transformed the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense into a new place, 50% social housing as well, in these two blocks. They were of the best architectural design in 2023.

J Karlström: May I ask you to round off the presentations?

Prof. Moreno: Yes, this was my last presentation. Thank you so much.
And now it's time for some questions.

Q&A with Professor Moreno

Prof. Glaser: Professor Moreno, I'm so thankful for hearing this talk. I have heard you speak a couple of times, and one thing that strikes me is, that you are so passionate and have so much evidence backing up this idea, this notion and all the different facets around it. But I know that probably some of our audience here - who is made up of campaigners, activists and advocates for cycling, people who are working on the ground designing cities - are confronted with severe resistance to change.

They're confronted with governance obstacles that are stifling innovation, legislation that is crippling, frameworks from, land use and zoning that are sclerotic, and as you say, archaic. So, for our audience here, what can be done about this? What are the first steps to overcome this type of resistance?

Prof. Moreno: Yes, this is a very good question. In my opinion, we need a double convergence. The first one, is to vote for having a local governance in this way. We need today to have the local governors, mayors of metropolis, or presidents of regions committed to transforming our cities with more liability. This is essential when we have the chance to live in a democracy.

This is the big difference between Paris, with the mayor Anne Hidalgo, and cities in Spain, for example, Valencia, that have elected mayors, anti-bike, and pro-cars. We need to have a choice. This is the first point, we need the mayors committed and the mayor pioneers, the mayors determined to develop this new local, urban policy in the mid-term, and in the long term.

The second point we need to develop is this new conscience. Jane Jacobs said conscience is our ultimate weapon. We need to develop this bottom-up conscience, supporting these mayors, committed for developing this policy, for being honest. Anne Hidalgo was very unpopular when she started this transition. Just for transforming the expressway along the Seine River into a new urban park, we had four years of different lawsuits provoked by the automotive lobby. This was very hard for supporting these attacks.

The automotive lobby is very powerful. Because of that, we need to support these mayors in this bottom-up exercise. Without the commitment of mayors supporting our cities, it is very hard to offer a perspective. In Paris, this is irreversible. In Valencia, unfortunately, the first city in Spain, the new major has decided to demolish the bike lanes. This is unfortunately the new reality of Valencia. We have lost bikeability because people have elected a pro-cars guy. Unfortunately.

Prof. Glaser: Thank you. I think that's very appropriate. Especially the first one, about voting here and in Europe. On June 6th, there will be European-level voting. So, time to take that action, right?

J Karlström: Yes. Maybe we have time for just one very short question. If Anna Niska has found any in the chat, then we need to take maybe a few minutes break before we move on.

Director Anna Niska: Yes, well, although there are many questions now in the chat, many of them are regarding, 15-minute cities and social inequality. Is it possible to have the 15-minute city concept in highly segregated regions, such as in the global South?

Prof. Moreno: Yes. Of course. I am totally committed to the global South. I was born in Colombia, and we have developed many different programs in Argentina, Mexico, and Chile.

No, it is the opposite. The centerpoint in the global South is true as well. In the global North, our cities are segregated, fractured, and segmented. This is the case in Paris, between the West and the East. With the 15-minute city, it is the opposite. We wanted to balance, to rebalance our cities. This is the main situation.

I went to Argentina. I went to Santa Fe, one of the major cities in Argentina. I discussed this with the population. They said, Professor Moreno, in our city of Santa Fe, in the informal settlements, people have poor houses, without medical services, without education, without sports activities, without local shops, just a place for sleeping.

The population said we need to have these services. We need education, medical services, and sports activities. It is the opposite; the global South is today a new urban flagship for reclaiming more local services. For a long time, these essential services don't exist. This is the reality.

In two weeks, I will go to Argentina for that. It is necessary to develop this new urban flagship. We need more essential services in our district and our neighbourhood. It is unacceptable that in this district, we need two hours just for going to have access to a doctor, just to have a radiography of the lungs. Two hours is the temporal injustice, related to the spatial injustice, in the global South.

Jones Karlström: Thank you so much. And like you said, Professor Moreno, you have also just released a new book. Everyone who is attending has the chance to win the book. A big thank you to Professor Carlos Moreno for the presentation.

Prof. Glaser: Thank you so much, Professor Moreno. And I would say that many of these questions are probably addressed in your book about local leaders, governance, retrofitting, and regional areas. So, I hope everyone takes the chance to enter their name and information to win the book and find out more.

Prof. Moreno: Thank you for your kind invitation. See you next time. Anywhere. Bye bye. Have a happy World Bike Day.

Short break.

Introduction to the story of Barcelona and Milan

Jones Karlström: That was a short break. Meredith will introduce our next two presenters, from two important cities in Europe.

Prof. Glaser: Yes. Thank you so much. We are so happy to have Silvia Casorran Martos, currently serving as General Secretary of the Cycling Cities Network in Spain. Previously, she was the lead officer at the cycling office for the city of Barcelona metropolitan area, a role she founded, while she coordinated the Cycling Cities network in Spain. Some of her previous roles include Mobility councillor for the … district in Barcelona, as well as deputy to the chief architect in Barcelona. For more than 15 years, she has been an activist in sustainable mobility social movements. Today, she will give us a taste of the challenges for Barcelona to become a 100% cycleable city.

We also have with us, Councillor Arianna Maria Censi. She's currently the Councillor for mobility for the city of Milan. She studied political science and sociology and has worked in municipal politics for three decades. Or more, since you were also involved as a teenager in politics as well. Beyond transport, she's worked on a number of important urban topics, such as health care, culture, housing and gender politics.

We are really happy to have both of you here. And I invite Silvia to start.

General Secretary Silvia Casorran Martos - presentation

GS Martos: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Meredith, and thank you Jones for the invitation.

I want to say many things before I will end up with cycling. After all, it's my main issue, especially nowadays. And also, because I believe the bicycle is the most transformative element in urban mobility.

But because of the topic of the 15-minute City, I also want to talk to you about the general approach in the city of Barcelona to transform public space. Because in the end, we are talking about transforming public space and mobility. And as Professor Carlos said, we want to reach a liveable city.

First of all, I will give you a short introduction to Barcelona. Then we will go through some metropolitan avenues that are being and in transformation right now. Then we will go through transforming the streets. And of course we have got super blocks. And then finally, we will end up with the 100% cycling city that Barcelona has become.

Barcelona is a really compact city. Paris is a little, more compact, but we are 1.7 million inhabitants in in just 100 km². It is the same size as the city of Paris. So, the plan that was developed during the 19th and 20th centuries, was connecting the old medieval town with the rest of the municipalities next to Barcelona. And 125 years ago, they weren't connected.

But when Cerdà made the plan, there were no tramways, there were no cars, there were no bicycles. There were just horse carriages. And then in the 19th century, tramways arrived. And at the end of the century cars, as you know. Cerdà designed the city. The blocks had to be built with just two or three facades and between the blocks there were always green areas. But what we got one century later, was urbanized with much more density. As you know, especially in the 60s, cars took up all the space, even the sidewalks, when I was a child.

This is the picture from Barcelona. “Eixample grid” from the top. You can see Barcelona is a city of streets. We only have a few, big parks. So, we have to work especially with the streets when we want to get more green and … conditions to live.

These were the externalities that came from the last century, from the traffic in cities. Many of them Professor Moreno mentioned, but let's go very fast through them because not all of them are included in the economy yet. So, they remain as externalities in the economy. Air pollution, noise crashes, unequal use of space, climate emergency and the heat island effect, lack of rain and sedentary lifestyle. All this is coming, because of the urban model based on that traffic during the last century. So, we need to get less car traffic. This is the only way to reach a liveable city. We want a city with more public space for people, for pedestrians, cyclists, playing, sports, just for leisure, and more greenery of course. And, of course, we need to give accessibility to all traffic, but just accessibility, they don't have to take most of the space as they do now.

Well, Barcelona is a really short distance city, a 15-minute city, because of developments of other facilities, especially from the 80s, from the Democratic town hall. In the metropolitan area, its municipality has all services, health and education services. Here you can see the map of the public markets at the top and a map of public libraries in the city of Barcelona. These are all walkable distances.

Of course, when we look at big data, we realize that most of the trips in the metropolitan area, this is the metropolitan scale, are up to two kilometres. More than 50% of the trips are less than two kilometres. So, these are walkable distances. In fact, in Barcelona city, more than 60% of commuting trips are made by foot. And when we look at the commuting trips, also external commuting trips, more than 83% of them are up to ten kilometres. This is 45 minutes of cycling. So, we could say the distances in the metropolitan area are perfect for cycling. But our core business in the Metropolitan, in the Administration is a public space. It's where we can make the change, to increase the quality of life of our inhabitants. Also, of course, social housing is very important, but in Barcelona, it's just up to two per cent. I like to hear that in Paris, in some areas, social housing is more than 40%. In Barcelona, the average number for the city is less than 2%. We have more tourist apartments than social housing in our city.

Well, let's go really fast through the biggest changes in the metropolitan avenues. The picture you see here is Meridiana Avenue. This is where Cerdà planned the city centre, Glorious. This is the Meridiana Gran via on diagonal. The three main streets are 50 m wide.

Meridiana was like this from the 60s until the 90s. We had 12 car lanes. You can see the sidewalks without any trees. People had to cross through anti-pedestrian bridges, as our Mexican colleagues always say. You see, people are just trying to cross here, without any pedestrian areas.

And now this is the same house. Now we've got this image. Finally, this capacity was reduced to eight car lanes in the 90s, and now it's being reduced to four. In the image of this picture are only two car lanes, one bus lane and one bike lane.

Another big change in the … avenue is along the diagonal, and under the diagonal, we had two tramways disconnected for more than 20 years now, with a missing link of 3.5 km, for political reasons we could say. Finally, this is nowadays. This image is, of course, a render. But in this case, you can see the render is almost coming true. Well, we need a lot of greenery still, but this tramway will be running here by the end of the year.

Also, Glòries Park with the Olympic Games. This was made in the 90s. We had this, elevated, roundabout in the city centre that Cerdà designed. Thanks to the neighbours that made an agreement, a commitment with all the political parties, this is being changed right now. And we are getting a huge, park in the middle of the city.

Transforming the streets is not only about big avenues. We need to change all streets. The mobility plans help us to define the street network model. And it was the bus network that was defining, which ones were the main streets in our city.

In the main streets, we need to go from four car lanes to two car lanes, one bus lane and a bike lane. With the Superblock Street network model, we are changing all hierarchy in the city, and we need to transform all the streets, not just the main streets. We started with a pilot in 2016, in Poblenou, where I used to live. It was made basically with tactical actions that remain, but also structural.

Then we went to scale up the rest of the city. We went to Sant Antoni, and then we went to different areas that are still in the process. The ones you see in yellow are the ones that were asked by the first participatory budget we had in Barcelona city, during the last period. Three of them won the participatory budgets, but many neighbourhoods asked for more Superblocks.

Well, when you put one Superblock next to the other you get these green corridors. This was the strategy that we followed in the last period with the new chief architect... And we made this map of green corridors around the city. We got this 184 km of green corridors, and we started, changing them. We went from this image of Consell de Cent during the Covid lockdown, to this image of Consell de Cent from last year. We also got four new squares. This is the one in Girona.

We also implemented the Protecting Schools program, with tactical interventions. But in the end, they were not just for kids. Everyone uses these new public spaces, with picnic tables. For me, it's the most democratic urban element that we can put in the streets. At this table, we've got three teenagers just doing their homework without the need to spend money that they don't have.

I want to show you an image of this project that we did together with Milan. Because we share the roundtable with Milan. It was about involving kids to design what they wanted to do in the in the public space.

Finally, what do we need to become a 100% cycling city? I tried to think about ten tips, on what I think is needed to reach 100% cycling city. This is our aim in the network Spanish Cities for Cycling.

1. First of all, infrastructure, segregated when necessary. When the speed of the cars is 50 or higher, we need segregated bike lanes. It can be on the right. It can be on the left. In Barcelona, it can be anywhere, bidirectional on the side, or bidirectional in the middle. We need proper signs. We need to avoid wrong signs because when we get a group of professional cyclists, we want them outside the bike lane. We need traffic-calmed streets. Also, safe shared spaces. With that we mean safe. Cars must respect the speed limit. So, when it's 30, it means maximum 30. We also need to avoid shared spaces with pedestrians. And we need metropolitan connections. This is the map that we made in 2016. Already two-thirds of this exists now. This is the main metropolitan cycling network.
   
2. The second one is bike parking facilities on the street. In Barcelona City we still haven’t started. We need on-street bike parking everywhere. And we also need safe bike parking spaces. And this is the one that I like the most. Safe parking on the ground floor. This is what we should have all around the city. We only have one in Sant Joan Despí.
   
3. Bike-sharing services. E-bikes and services are crucial to show the population how easy it is to use an e-bike and to remove the mechanical bike barriers. We are getting more than 7000 bikes in the bike share in Barcelona city, and more than 2000 bikes in the metropolitan bike sharing scheme. In this case too, Paris is in front of us because Paris has a metropolitan bike-sharing scheme. In Barcelona, there are still two companies.
   
4. Communication and promotion. From a national level, we need communication and promotion to the municipalities and Europe. This is our own campaign. This is all around the municipalities in Spain. (Showing images from a poster campaign)
   
5. Coordinated regulations. It doesn't make sense that the municipality has different regulations about cycling and e-scooters than the municipality next to you.
   
6. Capacity building. We need education for both kids and adults. This is not mandatory in Spain. We should provide it because we need to educate, especially our kids, but also our adults, and take care of each other.
   
7. Data culture. We need open data, and we need politicians to make decisions, depending on data and not on perceptions. We need to count bikes. We need cycle counters, and we need to show the data. We have a new mayor who wants to remove bicycle lanes. But maybe he will change his mind when he sees that 1000 people cycling here every day.
   
8. Push and pull mobility measures are not only about promoting bicycles but also about making it more difficult to move by car. Cycle logistics has a huge potential in European cities. But we also need low-emission zones. We need congestion charts to help cycle logistics to work. And we also need to forbid traffic on several streets.
   
9. Governance, in this case, the European Declaration on Cycling, is very important for us. Our municipalities are now approving it as well. Governance, and political commitment at all levels. The public space belongs to different levels, and they all need to be aligned if we want to become a cycling territory. In Spain, we've got four municipalities and province governments that approved the European Declaration on Cycling last week.
   
10. And of course, we need people fighting for all this. As Jane Jacobs said, we need consciousness, and we need people to go together to improve their quality of life in the cities. Streetfighters or street warriors, here to the right. You see me with my colleagues. We need people working both from inside the public bodies and from us as advocates.
    

The main thing you could do to change your cities is to promote the “Bicibus”. The Bicibus scheme is just families taking public space to cycle safely from home to school. This is happening every week in Barcelona.

Finally, of course, we will always get opposition. Public space is about conflict, but we will also get people in favour of us, and we need to get them on board and work together with them. And that's all.

Thank thank everyone.

Councillor Arianna Maria Censi - presentation

Prof. Glaser: We should give the floor immediately to Arianna, and then take questions at the end. So, for our audience, please write down your questions and, after that Councillor Cenci provides her insights on some first-hand politics of Milan's progress we'll open up for questions. Councillor Cenci, thank you so much for joining us. Please take it away.

Councillor Censi: Thank you to you. I hope to be useful for your discussion this afternoon. And thank you to Silvia and to Professor Moreno. Very interesting thing. I need to share with you some questions, because towns and cities are changing. They need to change, and they need, as Professor Moreno said, to make a relationship and be very engaged to change the world and the city. We are going to change the world, changing the city and how people move and live in the city. That's why, I would like to say two big things.

The first is, about the changing of the places and roads. As Barcelona said, we are moving for ten years, in the building of Piazze Aperte, an open square, that aims to transform space into a meeting place at the centre of the neighbourhood, to expand pedestrian areas and to promote sustainable forms of mobility, that benefit the environment and the quality of life in the city. You can see everything about this on the website commune.milano.it, in which a lot of pictures and the story of the open square.

However, I would like to say that using the tactical urban planning approach, the project began with an experimental and temporary phase. During the experimentation, it's possible to intervene to further improve the spaces through proposed initiatives and fruitful collaboration with the municipal administration and citizens.

That's why we need to transform the place in which people live. I need to share the fact that, when we make a change in the city, we have a part of the citizens that are very bike friendly, change friendly and a part of the citizens that are strongly against it. Now, the theme is to harmonize eyes, to say this is a change in your life. Now, I ask you to change your way of moving, your way of using roads, how you park your car, to have fewer cars, to reduce movement by car in the city, use public transportation, to become a pedestrian, go by bicycle, sharing: car sharing, bicycle. And I'm asking you to change your way of life. And I need to say it's a good thing for you, and you need to leave an experience that tells you, “It’s a good thing for me”. This is not an easy thing I can say.

I have the privilege to work in the city of Milan. It's a city that is in deep transformation, relative to the challenge of the world, relative to the question that our mayor gave to us, to change the town with all the other mayors of C40 and European cities: Barcelona, Paris, London, Warszawa, and Madrid. We are trying to change the city. I have this privilege and another one, which is to be on the Committee of the Region. The Committee of the Region is an organisation that works with the European Commission, in which there are people from local and regional authorities. Because I think that there is no Green Deal without local action. There is a working group named Green Deal Going Local. That says that no politics can come about without a relationship with the cities, towns, and regional authorities.

So, the second most important thing is to work together, to share experiences, and difficulties and to find solutions, common solutions. For instance, there is a solution for the cities. The European Declaration of Cycling, which Silvia mentioned, is a very important instrument. It is an expression of the will of the European Committee of the region, and the European Union, to change the design of our cities in the future, and to organize the relationship between city centres, urban and rural areas. Also, to offer a different life to Europeans, individually, and collectively as a society. You know, cycling and the transformation of the cities, help to create the public space, that is welcoming for people of all ages and all abilities in terms of movement. I think it's possible to encourage people to meet and connect and bring more people into the neighbourhood to live in the city together, making them more vibrant and safer. The question of safety is very important in the city. We need to make it within Milan - because it's a dense city with many cars, many people - the life in the city and the movement in the city safer.

Cycling is also an affordable and accessible means of transport. For instance, we changed a very big road in our city, Corso Buenos Aires, and during the lockdown, we transformed this part of the city. There is a cycle path. Now there are more than five times more people that go by bicycle on this road. They use the bicycle to go to work, to school, to move into the cities, and they change the way of moving relative to the changing of the city. This is a very important thing. If we realize that in changing the roads in this direction, we help people to change how they move.

We are working for cycling infrastructure and then making a relationship between urban infrastructure and rural infrastructure. We use all the money we can find. But it's important and we need the support of the European Union. For instance, think about TNT. TNT is the program that finances the way of transport and connections in Europe. We need to make sure that the active mobility infrastructure, both pedestrian and cycling, should be eligible for co-financing under the Connecting Europe facility, as these infrastructures increase the interoperability of the transport system.

This is a way to change the financing and consider cycling and walking as important ways of moving, regarding infrastructure. So, the European Commission should facilitate investments in the mobility of people in the new Cohesion Policy. It's very interesting, and we need to move financing in this way, as everyday mobility, and in particular cycling infrastructure, are visible investments that can reconnect European cities, with EU policies.

So, if I see something in my town on the road, near my house, I can see a relationship between that thing and European things, and we can keep moving on this. But there are strategies to make the best use of limited cycling budgets, we should develop holistic policies for urban planning and make cycling an important part of these policies. So, if we use this point of view, we can change together and make a way of moving in the projection. For instance, if we build a tramway line or renovate a train station, we must include the need for more cycling infrastructure.

If we develop cycle practice, particularly in the city, it is often to make space for it. And we need to say this is a safe practice for all people. People that go cycling or walk. For me, the question of safety is crucial. And it's nice to work in this way.

The last question is the challenge that we have in front of us. First, walking and cycling projects are generally still seen as lower priority than other types of transport infrastructure projects. We must change this point of view. And, Professor Moreno said, all the mayors must work in this direction. Yes! All together we must change that. They have the same importance, I would say. They are more important for me.

The second question. We don't have to miss legal provision. For instance, not including cycling infrastructure on the list of investments of important public interest or a lack of legal tools and land acquisition. In the urbanistic strategical point of view, we need to have this kind of construction, this kind of interventions. In some countries, in Italy for instance, make land acquisition, obtaining construction permits for cycle infrastructure sometimes is much more complicated than for motorways. And we need to change this point of view. And the last question, but not least obviously, is the question about health, about the quality of air and the quality of life for the people that use cycle to move.

We need to have a way to measure this benefit. The last thing I would like to say is, we are making a very important infrastructure M4, which is a new metro line in Milan that connects the east of the city to the west. And we had ten years of work, ten years of construction, every day as, a place of work in front of the house. Now we are using this, square, and road to make space for people, a playground for children, a place where people can sit, and a bike lane in the road.

When people have a new place in which they can stay, they understand the work we are doing. The problem is to do this in the little time we have and to set aside the struggle of politics. It's not easy, but it's necessary. We need to create a positive relationship with our citizens and say that we are moving to a new way of living in our city, for all the people.

I agree with Silvia. I agree with, Professor Moreno, we need to do this together. Because 50% of the population lives in the city. If we change how the citizens of the big towns move, we are changing. We are changing a part of the world.

So, I hope to be useful for your discussion. And I'm here to answer everything you want. Thank you.

Q&A with General Secretary Martos and Councillor Censi

J Karlström: Thank you so much. I think Meredith wants to start with some questions. But for the participants, please ask your questions in the chat, and I think Anna will look for them.

Prof. Glaser: Yes, I have a question that I think both of you could, hopefully, reflect on. Both cities that you guys are from, have an embedded culture of valuing public life. If anyone here thinks of Italy, you think of sitting outside at a square. In Barcelona, you think of walking in the evening.

The interventions that we've seen so far, are only a fraction of the ubiquity and dominance of automobility. So, we know that this is not a what-question but a how-question. What arguments have you used with political officials that have changed their minds? Have you been successful at changing minds within both of your work environments? Do you have an example for our listeners here, of something that has worked, and not necessarily to get this person to a complete “Yes”, because all we need is a “Maybe”. Yes. Silvia.

GS Martos: What I think was successful, was the Gloria commitment. It was a commitment that was proposed by four neighbour associations around Gloria to change this elevated roundabout and to make it a huge park. And they made it, signing the agreement with every political party. So, 17 years later, the commitment is still working. And no political change is affecting this commitment. I think that's really, a success. It was because of the population. It's not because of politics. I think politicians must come to power, already convinced. A four-year term is too short to make changes. As Arianna said, we don't have the time when we get the power. So, we need to be convinced before we are there. When we have a second term, four other years, then maybe we can learn from the first. For instance, with the superblock project. I think the second part and the second term were much more successful because the conviction was already there because of the pilot. And the pilot worked for thousands. But I think that's also why there is struggling. I didn't mention that, but nowadays the superblock project has been paralysed.

We don't know what's going to happen. There's no specific budget for it. And I think this is also because it was too much politically used. Like this tramway connection. So, sometimes when politicians are really opposing ideas, it can be even bad for the city. Like Arianna said, it's a question of convincing everyone, not only the ones that are already convinced. You must get them on board, and of course, you must discuss how to reach it. Not only what you want to do. That's also something we should take into account. Now, we need to reach more liveable cities. So we should discuss this objective. Then we can discuss how we can do this. But for me, the Gloria's commitment, it's the success.

Prof. Glaser: So, starting with existing community initiatives, kind of grassroots movements and documenting them through institutional forms like community commitments. Arianna, do you have a story?

Councillor Censi: I think that the relationship with citizens and the commitment of citizens. We approved a plan, named PAC, which is a plan for air quality. In this plan, there is a very important part about citizen participation. And we have 1000 answers and many of these citizens take six or seven weekends during the year when they study. They meet with experts, and they talk about the city. Because we have a terrible problem with the air quality in Milan. And we make a relationship between health, the air quality and the transformation of the city. So, in this way, we make a relationship between the needs of the young people and the old people.

The other question is that in Piazza Aperte we make 42 interventions. We use a lot more than 28,000 square metres. And now we launch another participation. We have 100 participants coming from the school, the commitment, to the people. So, I think the most important thing is to build a relationship and to communicate our goals with people, and to have a meeting every day.

You know, three years ago, when I met the commissioner in the municipality, I explained the transformation of the part of the city after the M4 work. They said to me, you are going to kill us, to kill all commerce, and the way of living in the road. And now, after six months they are happy. No one wants to come back. This is the question. We need to go strong in a little time to do something that changes life for them, with some of them, and then build a relationship with those who are opposed. Because, we have no time, no time.

Prof. Glaser: Thank you. So interdisciplinary connections, public participation, community organizing and building bridges. That's what I wrote down.

Jones Karlström: Anna, do we have any questions from the chat?
Director Niska: I can relate to what you said already, about citizen participation. How do you go about to get the participants to get on board? And how do you collect feedback from them? Do you just gather meetings or how do you start?

Councillor Censi: I can answer. The first thing is that in the urban strategical plan, there is citizen participation, and there is a way in which it should be done and there are people who work to make the participation possible. The second thing is we have municipalities. Our town is formed by nine municipalities, and we work together with the commission from each one.

And many people work alone in the municipalities. And they want to tell the administration how to do something, in which direction to move. We need to build a way of moving together with them.

I can share with you the last question three weeks ago. 1500 people moved all around the city to monitor cars that were parked in the wrong way. For one night they did this, and they showed us how many cars were wrongly parked. I think this is a very important thing. I want to make a relationship with them. I need to stay with them because they said to me, there is a problem. You need to find a solution. And the solution is to reduce the number of cars in the city, to redesign the roads, to have new spaces. And we need to do it together. It's hard. There are a lot of people who say, I want to go with my car. You are limiting my freedom. It's true. There is a part of truth. But, what's the most important part of freedom? That is the question. And we are building for all people. So, it's something that we promote and something that normally from the people, from the community of the school. The teachers, students and parents are one of the most important communities. And we need to build the change of the city with them.

J Karlström: That was interesting. I have one question too. Both of your cities have done things where you've radically redesigned the streets in some way, with the Piazza Aparte and the Superblocks or as the picture you showed Silvia from Barcelona. Do you think these types of changes can help people imagine streets or cities in a different way and for that to go beyond the specific action at that square or that street, to make them understand that this could be a way of living in the whole city?

GS Martos: Absolutely. We need to experience the change. Most people, beforehand, we don't realise what this change means. And I wouldn't use the word radical because it's just giving back to people what we had before the cars arrived. That public space was for all the citizens and public space is now what we are trying to get back.

We need time to understand changes. And in my opinion, we need a minimum of six months of time and if possible two years to understand how the new dynamics work, to understand what the new public space is bringing to our quality of life. For me, all these tactical actions are crucial. They were crucial because they were cheap. In our case, they are between 5 and 10 times cheaper than the structural actions. And we don't have the time and the money to change all of the city, when we need to pay, for instance with the superblock, €500 per square metre. With tactical actions, we can start from €50 per square metre.

So, I think they are very interesting to test. But we need brave politicians, of course, because it seems that many people don't like a colourful city and prefer the typical grey city.

J Karlström: What do you say, Meredith? Should we round off this part of the program?

Prof. Glaser: Yes, but I want to thank so much, our speakers, Silvia and Councillor Censi. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Discussion with Prof. Luca Bertolini and Asst. Prof. Enrica Papa

Prof. Glaser: In our next session, Professor Bartolini and Enrica Papa have also worked on these topics of street experiments, and that's the topic that we will discuss, for the next 30 minutes.

Well, it is such a pleasure to introduce Professor Luca Bertolini, a leading academic in urban and transportation planning, studying city transformation for 30 years, and about 20 years at the University of Amsterdam in geography planning and international development studies.

Also, Enrica Papa, Associate professor in transport planning at the University of Westminster in London, with nearly 20 years’ experience of research on urban planning. You both have worked on these concepts of sustainability transitions, street experiments, sustainable accessibility, happy proximity, as Professor Moreno was just discussing. You've also worked together and with Professor Moreno. So, with these 25 minutes or so, I would like to reflect with you both on the process of change and give you both some space to share with our audience what you've learned throughout your impressive careers.

Today we've heard from Professor Moreno and policymakers in cities, that are actively working on implementing principles around the 15-minute city, about the idea of transforming our streets away from places of car dominance towards people. We also hear that the change is rife with conflict. Sometimes conflicts can be overcome, but sometimes it is completely stifling progress.

So, I'd like to start by asking each of you; could you share from your research one or two key mechanisms of change processes that you have uncovered in your decades of work?

Prof. Luca Bertolini: Shall I start? Thanks Meredith. I'll name two related mechanisms that are fundamental to me.

The first is questioning current norms, current ways of thinking and doing and, for instance, questioning the idea that this street is, mainly or even only, meant for channelling traffic. So that's a norm in many people, many legal systems, organizations. You must question that.

The second, and related, is exploring a different norm, and different ways of doing and organizing. So, for instance, the idea that, no, maybe this street is not only or merely for turning traffic but has a multiplicity of functions. It's also a place for play, for socializing. It's a place for climate adaptation measure. And do this questioning and exploring, both in the public discourse, it's very important the way we talk about things, in different contexts, but also for real. That is, experiments for me are a very important thing.

Again, keeping to this example of street norm, then street experiments temporarily suspending the current norm, the idea that a street is mainly for traffic, is blurring temporarily a different norm. So, allowing other uses or even giving priority to other uses.

Why is it important to experiment? We should not do as if there is no resistance to change. It's built in many things in the heads of people, in institutions, and the physical environment. Change is not going to happen from one day to another. It is a process with resistance, complexity, and uncertainty. We need a learning-by-doing process. And we need, it has also been said, to give people the experience of what not just they will lose, but also what they will gain by change. And that's why discussions are important. Modelling is important, but experiencing things it's also crucial.

Prof. Glaser: Thank you. And Enrica?

Asst. Prof. Enrica Papa: Thank you Meredith. It's very nice to celebrate the Bicycle Day with you all. I think it's hard to add something to what Luca already said, because it's very comprehensive. Maybe just to stress some points.

Change means learning. And to change you must have a safe learning environment and I think those experiments, those niches, are basically that where the people involved can experiment with new ideas and gather data on the visibility and impact. So, before scaling up, you need an area to test. And this is something that, you mentioned the project, we both worked on. It was called EXTRA - Experimenting with City Streets. Because the mobility was done focusing on experiments and not just temporary interventions, we gave them the name of experiments because we wanted to define them again as microlearning environments, but also very much looking at, the potential of change those single, small things, have so to look at those micro changes into a bigger scale.

I think another crucial element of change is to consider the multi-level perspective. How those small experiments are linked to … and macro level and strategies. So, in terms of our streets, how much those are embedded into much more long-term strategies and plans. I think the small microlearning element in which participatory planning and co-creation are crucial. But also looking at further scales.

Prof. Glaser: I have on my desk, one of our colleague’s dissertation, which I'm very proud to be on the dissertation committee. On experimenting with streets for system change.

You bring up learning, and microlearning environments using a multi-level perspective. What can cities learn from a street experiment?

Prof. Bertolini: I think an important thing to say, generally, is that we see a lot of experimentation in cities. Also, a lot of street experiments maybe called tactical urbanism or other things. But it's very important that we don't see them as an end in itself, as a one of something. They really should be an exploration of what the whole city could be.

So, they should have a component of; what if the whole city was like that? What would we gain? What will we lose? How could we build what we gain? How do we cope with what we lose? I think both Barcelona and Milan are very good examples, both the Super blocks and the Piazza Aperte. Part of this, of course, started as limited interventions, sometimes also temporary, but always with an idea; something very explicit, of something that could become the whole city. But again, even though you do need to make plans, and visions, and show the whole network how the whole city could be, it's not rolling out a plan which is decided once and for all. Because the complexity is not there. Problems might appear that you didn't think about. You need to adapt the plan. So, I think it's connecting these experiments to long-term visions and policies and keep going back and forth, that is crucial. Barcelona and Milan are two fantastic examples of doing it well, but it's not always the case.

Prof. Glaser: Thank you. Enrica, do you have any reflections?

Asst. Prof. Papa: Maybe I can add some practical examples. When we talk about street experiments in the context of the 15-Minute City, the four main components are:

1. land use/spatial proximity,
   
2. transport element,
   
3. social justice,
   
4. and more digital connectivity.
   

For each of those categories, we have possible ways to experiment. For example, when we think about spaces, there could be pop-up mixed-use spaces. From those experiments, the learning is, for example, measuring the increase in local business revenue. Collect residents’ and businesses’ feedback. Also, within EXTRA, we implemented some of these tools that cities can use to do these things.

Terms of mobility: For example, creating temporary bike lanes and pedestrian zones. Cities can learn to measure the impacts of those things in terms of how people move around noting and including cycling and walking. That was already mentioned by Barcelona.

All along those categories I think cities can learn and, in most cases, we still need to provide evidence. In the UK context it's, okay, but what are the numbers? And experiments provide these types of tools, to collect and create measurable impact.

Prof. Glaser: I think that was one of my next questions, because in the chat there were some questions about indicators. Especially around cycling, I think there's quite a focus on kilometres of bike paths and the number of cyclists. But I get the sense that what we're talking about here is just so much wider, broader than that.

So, what are some of the indicators that you consider could be helpful for the audience here today, which is much more focused on cycling?

Prof. Bertolini: I have recently published an article, which says we should plan mobility beyond mobility. And that, for me, is really a reaction to what I see happening more and more, which is a radical broadening of the agenda of what is mobility for or against.

If you look at the history of mobility, and the last 50 years, at the beginning was just about mobility, making it efficient. The faster, the cheaper, the better. Then safety issues came in, then later environmental issues. The more we get to the present, we see more and more mental health, physical health, social cohesion, the well-being of children, the well-being of the elderly, climate adaptation issues, etc.

We hear today, the story from Barcelona and Milan is about that variety of issues. I remember a presentation by Salvador Rueda, one of the initiators of the Super blocks, about it's not that mobility is not a right, but there are other rights. So, let's put all of that on the table.
We sometimes have this ide, of the broad dashboard, to put more indicators to try and measure. Because what is not measured – measured doesn't mean numbers, it could be stories, many things, pictures – is not considered. So, we have an absolute system where we can measure mobility flows with incredible precision, and we can say nothing about what it means for kids that they can play in the street. Also, it's not just bringing in numbers or assessing, but diversifying what we assess to make it fit this broader agenda that we have.

Asst. Prof. Papa: We are now working exactly on this aspect, in one arising project called Just Streets. I see that Amsterdam is also involved. The plan is to start from the existing indicator frameworks, also the Healthy streets developed in London, and then add more. It's about mobility, space, health. However, other aspects are not usually measured, especially this aspect of justice, which is also quite broad, but it might include affordable mobility. For example, how is the distribution of community engagement across all income levels? For example, when you design a street, or community empowerment aspects, low-income neighbourhoods, mobility, transport, usage of the streets or inclusive public spaces.

What is the the percentage of people in different groups, how they use the streets? How is the safety impacting them? It could be quantitative, but also qualitative elements that should, be considered in in this project. I hope we might be ready to share some useful tools and reports quite soon. We are now collecting literature. There is already a lot to be implemented, and to improve how streets are measured.

Prof. Glaser: Thank you. For those of you listening, Enrica was speaking about the project called Just Streets. You can also follow the project on LinkedIn. Enrica, you mentioned the multilevel perspective. Within this framework, it's my understanding that the context is really important to know. And, it seems like we have today huge windows of opportunity. A lot of simultaneous crises happening. We have political ten years to consider, a lot of different factors and dynamics. Are there certain cities or contexts that are more ripe for change than others? If we think about these variety of windows of opportunity, in your work, have you been able to identify this?

Asst. Prof. Papa: I was involved in and coauthored this report that collected example of cities that practiced this idea of 15 minutes. Again, from theory to practice. And we collected 100 examples around Europe. We also did a bit more deep-dive analysis. And I have to say that one of the cities that I like the most to analyse and to speak with is, still an Italian city, Bologna.

And, what I really like, from analysing the case is this strong emphasis of the social aspects of mobility and the social aspect of how to transform 15-minute city, the role of communities. And thinking about some for example, practical example are the proximity agents. Those are the ones that really create the links between the local communities and the other neighbourhoods and create this 15-minute city idea, by really working together from the ground, something that was mentioned with the local actions by Milan intervention.

If we want to learn from some cities, there are cities that are working on this, 15 minutes idea without even mentioning this name. But since decades, Bologna has such a long tradition of civic engagement. I think it's probably those aspects that should be emphasized and analyzed and worked on in practice.

Prof. Glaser: Thank you.

J Karlström: Can I interrupt with a question also? When you talked about the street experiments, that you can learn from one place in the city and maybe look at, like you said Luca, the drawbacks and positives from that street and scale it up to the whole city, can we look at it from a different scale? Take famous cities such as Milan, Paris, and Barcelona and look at how those cities affect the continent of Europe and other cities if they can influence other cities’ way of thinking.

Prof. Bertolini: If I get your question right, you say; one thing is one city learning from what it does, but the other is also learning from what other cities are doing, and a lot of these projects we are involved in, there is a lot of learning between cities. And today we are learning from Barcelona and Milan, and the example that Carlos Moreno brought in.

I think it's useful. It helps a lot to see that somewhere things are happening, and that change is not just an abstraction. It is something that can happen. It's happening now. At the same time, I think we should not conclude that we don't need to try it out again in each different context because each city is different. Barriers but also enablers could be different. I think in that sense, we can come with a vision of a process, but I doubt that we don't need to, in each city, try it out and understand what is unique. Also, because this process, it has been said a lot today, is about getting people on board. Every time people are different. But I believe that it's happening in other cities or has happened in the past, maybe in other cities, that is a very powerful trigger to get things going.

So, keep learning from each other and if you are in contact, learning from each other, if you have similar ambitions, try similar things. There's so much you can learn from each other. Also, the network itself is super important.

Prof. Glaser: Luca, I would love to know if you had a reflection on windows of opportunity, and if there were certain aspects of cities, maybe not cities themselves, but aspects that are more ripe for change than others.

Prof. Bertolini: Yeah. It's a good question. As I said, it's important in each city to understand what it is here. And many things are shared, climate change is there and other things. Also, we all had the experience of the pandemic which also was an external shock, this idea of, the multilevel perspective that was a trigger for change. At the same time, I think is super interesting to say that some cities used that window of opportunity some didn't, and even those that used it, some built on it, some went back.

There are many more factors. But one thing that I see over again in these types of changes, and experiments, is that there's climate, there are also environmental issues, but what really makes people active is more the social side, the discovering or rediscovering of each other, interactions, the street as a public space. There's definitely a sort of latent need for sociality, which is not just virtual, not just social media. Even for very young people that, among other things, potentially seems to be a very mobilizing factor, which again is so human. We are social beings, and I think it's everywhere to be activated.

Prof. Glaser: Thank you. I have one last burning question. Capacity building has been brought up several times throughout this webinar. And there might be planners, and students, in the audience, learning has been a key topic. What is the number one skill that the next generation of planners needs or the current generation? What do we need to learn and what type of skill is that?

Asst. Prof. Papa: Actually, we discussed this question with Leo Murray. He is leading this Possible Länk till annan webbplats. and is in the UK. In very practical terms, we discussed that what is needed when we talk about prediction, is dealing with conflicts, being clear about the timing of possible change, being very specific on when and how to act, measuring time frame and when the effect is going to be measurable. In some cases, we talk with people working in local authorities. You know, they see their trade and people were not ready for it. That's probably important, to look at realistic expectations, and conflict management, to be resilient and embrace failures, change and the complexity of change.

Prof. Glaser: Thank you. That's great. Managing conflict, measuring time frames, and embracing failure. Luca, do you have anything to add?

Prof. Bertolini: I know, this is great. Indeed. I would definitely second it. Maybe I'd name two things. One is imagination. Feeling free to imagine a world that is different from the world. It is there. It means to also become aware that the world we have is one among many more possible. And that's the same for the future.

And the second, that has been said many times today, but experimentation, which is a skill with many aspects, including conceiving, organizing, learning from them, connecting them to long term policies. I think the experimentation has to become much more central in planning and policymaking. And we should start with students.

Prof. Glaser: Agreed. Thank you. Well, thank you so much, both of you, for joining us today. I've learned so much, and I always love getting a chance to have both of you at the same time. What an honour. And, Jones, we are going to wrap this up.

J Karlström: Thank you so much. I have to say that also, very interesting to hear your reflections. Yes. We're going to wrap this thing up. It's been a very nice webinar, the presentations and experiences from Milan, Barcelona and Carlos Moreno.

And a big thank you to Meredith and the Urban Cycling Institute for working together with us on this webinar.

Prof. Glaser: Thank you. Please don't forget to post your key lesson from the webinar on LinkedIn and hashtag #theorytosocialpractice. I have a fantastic number of quotes. I think my favourite so far is from Luca. “Change is not just an abstraction; it is happening now. It's happening everywhere”. It might be mine unless someone else gets to it first.

Resources and conclusion

Prof. Glaser: I would love to post the link to Navigating the 15-Minute City report that Enrica was referring to several times. It's a fantastic report just put out by her team and Driving Urban Transitions (DUT). I'll put it in the link right in the chat right now. Also, Luca's newest paper called The Next 30 Years: Planning Cities Beyond Mobility. It’s also in the chat now. Rethinking reclaiming our streets has been a topic we at Urban Cycling Institute partnered with the University of Amsterdam, have several courses that, free online courses that can help in this thinking, that a probably 25-30,000 people have taken part in.

When thinking about learning and learning new skills, the online learning has just boomed in the last couple of years. There are so many resources, maybe even difficult to navigate. But we have several, on our website, Urban Cycling Institute offers four at least. EIT Urban Mobility also has a number on their website. Carlos Moreno spoke about Benjamin Büttner from TUM Munich, who has been a partner in several of these courses and works on happy proximity. Anything else to add here?

J Karlström: Yeah. I think we could also add, if you missed out on last year's webinar with Professor Marco te Brömmelstroet, and Ghent’s Vice Mayor, Filip Watteeuw, that was very inspiring also. We can put that in the chat too, because it's recorded. If you want to share this webinar with your friends or colleagues, we will edit it a little and then put it on our website. And I'm sure that the Urban Cycling Institute can send the link in their newsletter also, if you follow them.

Prof. Glaser: Yes. Perhaps there are people in the audience who will be at Velo-City in just a couple of weeks here in Ghent. I will be there and hope to see some of you there. Jones, will you be there?

J Karlström: I will be there also. Yeah. And thank you also, Anna, for helping out with the questions.

Prof. Glaser: And thank you to some people on my team, Mohammed and Dasha, you've been posting some of our Urban Cycling Institute resources. Thank you so much. I see Marco online. Always has a devil's advocate thought.

J Karlström: All right. Are we closing it up? Again, big thank you to everyone, both to our audience, the presenters, and the panelists. And a big thank you to Meredith and your crew at the Urban Cycling Institute.

Prof. Glaser: Thank you, Jones. See you at Velo-City.