The Cities Trailblazing Transit Service into the Wilderness

Austria rolled out the KlimaTicket, an annual pass that gives the holder access to all forms of public transportation in the country, to encourage increased use of public transport with an eye toward climate change mitigation. The uptake has exceeded expectations with 134,000 tickets sold within just the first two months, but it's still unclear what effect the program will have on the country's carbon emissions.

Substitutes for city parking requirements are becoming increasingly popular throughout the United States. Rather than using off-street parking, many housing developers now provide residents with alternatives that promote reduced driving. This method is better for the environment and lowers the cost of housing in urban areas.

Copenhagen is a highly livable city, thanks to policies that focus on making streets safe and convenient to walk. The bigger the city, the worse it is to design urban spaces only with cars in mind, says planner and architect Jan Gehl. His top advice is to gather data about people and their movements, making pedestrians as visible in city planning as automobile traffic.

Gathering Place is the name of a new park in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is a large-scale creative park project that, rather than receiving funding from the local government, was funded entirely through a local philanthropic foundation. One goal of the park is to bring different areas of the city together--though it remains to be seen if this will work as well as if privately-funded public spaces are effective in the future.

Radar, lidar, and sensors guide the world’s first autonomous tram across Potsdam. While not yet commercially viable, the tram is an advancement in driverless technology. It can respond to road hazards faster than a human and runs on energy from wind and solar.

San Diego residents may be seeing more placemaking projects, like murals or pedestrian plazas, because of a more streamlined permitting process. The city, notorious for making such projects difficult and expense to install, passed legislation and will be reviewing it to assess whether it should be expanded. San Diego has also created a fund that can help offset the costs of permit fees and other expenses.

To help essential workers navigate the notorious traffic of Bogota, the city built over 50 miles of an emergency bike network. The plan was in place before the arrival of coronavirus but the execution was sped up to meet the demands of increased bike usage. Other measures were also put into place to make the roads more bike and pedestrian-friendly: Reduced speed limits for cars, a 20 percent increase in private parking for bikes, and a bike registration system to deincentivize bike theft. Efforts to expand bike lanes not only eased traffic, they also helped relieve pressure on the overcrowded bus system.

An initiative on the Moscow metro system has posters on the train featuring cats and dogs that are looking for a home. Known as the “Tails and Paws” train, these animals come from 13 animal shelters in the city and riders can use their phone to scan the poster to learn more about the animals up for adoption. “It’s about forming a new culture of responsible attitude to animals,” says one of the workers at a shelter.

Women who faced difficulty getting to the nearest hospital when they were in labor, organized to raise money to buy a car that could be used as an emergency vehicle. Although having the car has helped significantly with accessing the hospital, it's not a fail-proof system and can be costly for the community to maintain. The state government was impressed with the scheme, however, and has launched an initiative that helps provide financial incentives to drivers for the program.

The Kansas City Streetcar provides fare-free transportation for residents, which helps to get them downtown and promote more economic development. The fare-free streetcar also makes transit more equitable by removing barriers for low-income passengers and improving mobility for people with disabilities.