City streets experiments to transform urban mobility

Urban Planning scholar Luca Bertolini will lead newly funded project EX-TRA (EXperimenting with city streets to TRAnsform urban mobility)

Across Europe, cities are trying to radically reduce their reliance on car-based mobility in order to address sustainability challenges. Two things are lacking in these efforts towards a ’post-car’ city: a proactive vision of cities that are both sustainable and accessible without cars, and effective strategies to deal with systematic resistance to change. EX-TRA will generate knowledge that address these shortcomings.

Central to EX-TRA’s approach are transition experiments in city streets, or intentional, temporary changes in street use, regulation and/or form, aimed at exploring systemic change towards a ’post-car’ city. By way of urban living labs in Amsterdam, Bologna, Milan, Ghent, Munich and London, the project will generate insights into:

  • Possible combinations of physical design and regulation that increase the types of usage and inclusivity amongst users of city streets
  • Transport and land use conditions for the purpose of enabling and improving walking and cycling accessibility in city districts
  • Shared mobility platforms and micro-mobility and freight delivery options which complement attractive streets and accessible districts
  • Strategies of change that can accelerate the transition towards a ’post-car’ city.

    • About ERA-NET

    The ERA-NET Cofund Urban Accessibility and Connectivity (ENUAC) supports researchers, cities, municipalities, businesses, civil society and other stakeholders to build transnational consortia to create challenge-driven innovation and research projects that address the challenges of sustainable urban passenger mobility, freight, transport and connectivity as integral and essential parts of sustainable urban development.

    UvA researcher Luca Bertolini investigated the impacts of ’street experiments’ and draws lessons for urban policy Read the blog ’What can we learn from street experiments’’

    Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

    GPIO : Urban Planning