Mobility is at a crossroads.
Our post-pandemic world offers no better time for governments and their partners to rethink mobility.
A business-as-usual approach would dictate continuing to build roads for private motor vehicles.
It has been well documented: more roads with more lanes equal more cars.
Experience from cities worldwide demonstrates that such expansion is unsustainable.
It leads to death, injury and disability, and contributes to traffic jams, lengthy commutes, and related stresses as well as heart and lung diseases and poor air quality.
A new vision of mobility would demand building or redesigning roads, not for cars, but for everyone.
Governments could achieve this by increasing investments in modes such as walking, cycling and public transport.
And many are already doing so.
- From France which is investing €2 billion over the next four years to build cycle roads and provide financial help to buy bikes;
- to India where vehicle manufacturers are building more 4- and 5-star rated cars, with enhanced pedestrian protections;
- and Luxembourg which offers all buses, trains and trams free of charge to anyone;
- and Wales where urban and village roads across the country will soon have a default 20 mph speed limit.
Today, despite some progress, we continue to pay an unacceptable toll for our mobility with 1.3 million deaths and as many as 50 million injuries on the world’s roads each year.
So, let’s take inspiration from the successes being achieved in some settings, by first putting safety at the core of mobility systems and people at the heart of our decision-making about how we move in the world.
Governments everywhere need to act on making vehicles and roadways safe, improving how people behave on the roads, and ensuring, if there is a crash, that the injured have access to quality, life-saving emergency care.
The Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 calls for continued action in these areas.
In addition, the Global Plan highlights that a shift towards people-centered roads and road networks – those that are planned, designed, built and operated to eliminate risks – would save lives.
Such roads consider first and foremost those most at risk of injury: children and adolescents, people with disabilities, pedestrians, cyclists and users of public transport.
At its best, mobility can help drive positive social change in many areas of society.
Making way for safe walking and cycling can impact favorably on health and the environment, allowing people to reap the rewards of being physically active and breathing clean air.
When they are made safe, buses, trams and commuter trains, which carry more people than private motor vehicles, can be champions for inclusion and prosperity.
Let’s take advantage of this moment in time to rethink – and redo – mobility, for the well-being of people and the planet, now and for future generations.