Chapter 13: Urban Transportation

What is Urban Transportation?

Urban transportation plays a very important role in society because it facilitates the movement of people and goods in highly populated areas. Urban transportation is one area where city planning, economic productivity, citizen health, and action on climate change are all interconnected. As cities continue to expand, the pressure for urban transportation to support sustainability grows. But what exactly is urban transportation? Urban transportation includes all elements of transportation of people and goods within an urban area. This includes infrastructure, vehicles of all types, including human-powered, and traffic patterns and flows (Loo, 2009).

Urban transportation holds significant personal and societal relevance in today’s fast-paced and interconnected world. On a personal level, it impacts the daily lives of millions of individuals, affecting access to education, employment, healthcare, and leisure. There are many factors that influence the choice of transportation mode, including convenience, cost, and time efficiency. But, the impacts of urban transportation go beyond just how we get around. They can also impact the local environmental conditions and our physical and mental well-being.

Societally, cities are hubs of economic activity, culture, and social interaction. Well-planned and accessible transportation networks can contribute to economic growth, reduce traffic congestion, improve air quality, improve population health, and enhance the overall quality of life. Conversely, inadequate or inefficient transportation systems can increase congestion, air pollution, and economic disparities.

Urban Transportation and Climate Change

According to the United Nations’ World Cities Report (2020), cities are responsible for 70 percent of global carbon emissions. They also consume two-thirds of the world’s energy. Although Welegedara and Agrawal (2024) found that household energy contributes more to greenhouse gas emissions in high-latitude cities, urban transportation is the biggest emitter in most locations. But what accounts for these emissions?

Emissions from vehicles

The majority of vehicles use fossil fuels. These fuels release greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when burned. This contributes to global climate change and creates ground-level pollution. Both of which harm human health and the environment.

Infrastructure construction and maintenance

Another significant contributor is the construction and maintenance of infrastructure to support urban transportation. As our cities grow, this infrastructure continues to expand. In addition, infrastructure design can impact traffic patterns, especially the feasibility of non-motorized transport and public transportation. On the other hand, climate change is expected to have significant impacts on transportation infrastructure. As Liu, Wang, Wang, and Koks (2023) found, extreme weather, including both heat and precipitation, is likely to reduce the life span of transportation infrastructure and will need to be accounted for in planning and maintenance.

Responsible Consumption and Production

Clearly, urban transportation is linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Climate Action. However, as we alluded to in the infrastructure discussion, it also impacts responsible consumption and production. Infrastructure can have a big impact on whether individuals can engage in responsible consumption when it comes to transportation. The two main forms of transportation for individuals are collective and individual transportation. A motorized vehicle, such as a car, is the dominant form of individual transportation in many locations. These personal vehicles have high emissions per passenger. There is an increasing focus on encouraging non-motorized individual transport such as cycling and walking. We’ll look at one initiative shortly. Regarding collective transportation, public transportation tends to be the main focus. Key to success, though, is ensuring that public transportation is both safe and effective. You can’t take public transportation if it doesn’t go through the areas that you need access to, and you won’t take it if you don’t feel safe on it.

In a world that is becoming increasingly urbanized, the relevance of urban transportation cannot be overstated. it influences the daily experiences of individuals and shapes part of the fabric of society. As we confront the challenges of sustainability, inclusivity, and economic development, our decisions regarding urban transportation will have a lasting impact on the well-being of our cities and their inhabitants.

15-Minute Cities

There are different approaches to improving the sustainability of urban transportation. You might think of improving cycling infrastructure, building and expanding light rail networks, introducing car-free zones, and implementing road diets which typically convert four-lane undivided roads into roads with two through lanes and a centre two-way left turn lane. However, urban transportation is a system; therefore, we need to consider system-level changes. One of these is the 15-minute city.

The 15-minute city and similar concepts are based on the concept of chrono-urbanism. Chrono-urbanism suggests that “the quality of urban life is inversely proportional to the amount of time invested in transportation, more so through the use of automobiles” (Moreno, Allam, Chabaud, Gall, & Pratlong, 2021, Section 5, para. 1). In other words, the longer you have to spend getting around in automobiles, the lower the quality of urban life. There are different models of the 15-minute city, but generally, they require that all individuals can access basic essentials within a 15-minute walk or bicycle ride. Moreno et al. (2021) suggest that the essentials include six categories: living, working, commerce, healthcare, education, and entertainment. It should be clarified that this does not mean that you cannot leave that 15-minute area. It means more so that you would have opportunities to, for example, purchase groceries and non-specialty clothing items, visit a gym or other fitness opportunity, access a general medical clinic, and enjoy a public barbeque within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. Opportunities like specialty purchases, large theatre productions, and work and education like universities would still be more centralized and accessible to all. The focus is not on dividing the city into sections but on putting the needs of people and planet first. The 15-minute city, and chrono-urbanism more generally, is working on moving away from car-centric urban design.

Paris was the first city to adopt this concept. But others have followed, and more are investigating it. Indeed,  Allam, Khavarian-Garmsir, Lassaube, Chabaud, & Moreno (2024) identified 77 initiatives worldwide that launched between 2016, when the concept was first introduced, and 2023. Each city will face different challenges; therefore, a 15-minute city may look different in each location. However, there are some common benefits, including reduced emissions and traffic, increased bike lanes and pedestrian areas, increased support for the local economy, increased green spaces, and an increased sense of community. Areas such as job creation have been focused on less than some other factors (Allam et al., 2024).

Urban Transportation is a Social, Economic, and Environmental Issue

We’ve discussed a little about how urban transportation connects to issues like climate change and the 15-minute cities discussion mentions topics like local economies and a sense of community. Urban transportation is very connected to issues such as poverty and social justice. Limited access to reliable transportation can exacerbate poverty. Without affordable and efficient transportation options, individuals in low-income communities may face challenges trying to commute to their jobs or employment opportunities, education, and essential services. Owning a car is expensive. However, it is the only feasible way to get to and from work in some urban areas. This means that to get and keep a job, a person might need a car. The songwriter Ben Folds wrote a song for the 2006 movie Over the Hedge called Rockin’ the Suburbs. One of the verses highlights the feedback loop this creates:

We drive our cars every day

To and from work both ways

So we make just enough to pay

To drive our cars to work each day

Hey, hey

Unfortunately, people have to pay for a lot more than just their car bills. Therefore, urban transportation can impact people’s access to work, food, and other needs. And whether they can afford to pay for needs like food, clothing, shelter, and energy. Concepts like ‘transport poverty” arise from a lack of transit choices combined with socioeconomic disadvantage, making it difficult to get to key locations such as places of employment. Poor transit accessibility, walkability, and bikability, combined with other forms of social and economic disadvantage (e.g. disability, not being able to afford a car, etc.), can result in transport poverty (Casas, 2007; Alonso-Epelde, García-Muros, & González-Eguino, 2023). A primary function of an urban transport system is to provide people the opportunity to participate in daily activities, social interactions, and access to destinations necessary for their well-being. However, research demonstrates that within Canada’s eight largest cities, 5% of the population living in low-income households are also situated in areas with low transit accessibility. This totals nearly one million people at risk of transport poverty nationwide (Allen & Farber, 2019).

References

Allam, Z., Khavarian-Garmsir, A. R., Lassaube, U., Chabaud, D., & Moreno, C. (2024). Mapping the implementation practices of the 15-minute city. Smart Cities, 7(4), pp. 2094-2109. https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities7040083

Allen, J. & Farber, S. (2019). Sizing up transport poverty: A national scale accounting of low-income households suffering from inaccessibility in Canada, and what to do about it.  Transport Policy, 74, pp. 214-223. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2018.11.018

Alonso-Epelde, E., García-Muros, X., & González-Eguino, M. (2023). Transport poverty indicators: A new framework based on the household budget survey. Energy Policy, 181, 113692. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113692

Casas, I. (2007). Social exclusion and the disabled: An accessibility approach. The Professional Geographer, 59(4), pp. 463-477. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9272.2007.00635.x

Liu, K., Wang, Q., Wang, M., & Koks, E. E. (2023). Global transportation infrastructure exposure to the change of precipitation in a warmer world. Nature Communications, 14. Article No. 2541. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38203-3

Loo, B. P. Y. (2009). Transport, Urban. International Encylopedia of Human Geography, pp. 465-469. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-008044910-4.01039-7

Moreno, C., Allam, Z., Chabaud, D., Gall, C., & Pratlong, F. (2021). Introducing the “15-minute city”: Sustainability, resilience and place identity in future post-pandemic cities. Smart Cities, 4(1), pp. 93-111. https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities4010006

UN Habitat. (2020). World Cities Report. United Nations. https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2020/10/wcr_2020_report.pdf 

Welegedara, N. P. Y. & Agrawal, S. K. (2024). Household energy-related carbon footprint in residential neighbourhoods in high-latitude cities: A case of Edmonton in Canada. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2023.105098