Post-pandemic Urbanis

This includes pedestrian mobility and all kinds of cycling mobility
but also car-sharing systems. The crisis made room for a challenge
to the highly normalized world of road infrastructure. The perpetuation
of temporary actions will essentially depend on the legal possibility
of transforming them into permanent designs by changing
the system of infrastructure standardization itself. As an example,
Brussels has temporarily adapted its city center—the Pentagon district—during
the crisis in May 2020. The maximum speed limit was
reduced to 20 kilometers per hour in order to prioritize quality of life
and safety. The transformation into a traffic-calmed neighborhood
allows pedestrians to use the full width of the street and not just the
sidewalks. This has given people more space, reducing also the risk
of contagion. 23
104
As a consequence of these positive developments, the entire car
network had been permanently slowed down in January 2021,
following long-standing plans. This reduces noise pollution and
increases road safety, and not only in the inner city. 24
A comparable strategy is described in the latest edition of the
Zurich handbook for street planning (“Standards Fussverkehr” 25 ),
where a shift from a “center line out” to an “outside in” organization
of the street is suggested, building on the city of Toronto’s “Complete
Street Guidelines.” This means that instead of designing a
street’s profile to meet the needs of (car) traffic in the center, it
should be expanded from the edges according to the needs of life
and use. 26
23 City of Brussels, “Adjustment of the Pentagon Residential Area,” https://www.brussels.
be/residential-area, last accessed June 24, 2021, last modified February 15, 2021.
24 City of Brussels, “Brussels 30 km/h Zone since 1 January 2021,” https://www.brussels.
be/brussels-30-kmh-zone-1-january-2021, last modified January 4, 2021.
25 Stadt Zürich Tiefbauamt, “Standards Fussverkehr,” 2020, Schweiz, online under:
https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/ted/de/index/taz/verkehr/verkehrskonzepte.
html#fussverkehr, last accessed May 31, 2021.
26 City of Toronto, “Complete Streets Guidelines,” https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/
uploads/2017/11/906b-Chapter-1.pdf; https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/
streets-parking-transportation/enhancing-our-streets-and-public-realm/completestreets/complete-streets-guidelines/,
last accessed March 4, 2021.