There is an innovative, cost-efficient measure available for city planning that can answer commuter demand, enable positive change, improve neighborhood quality, and promote the use of micro-mobility: reduce on-street parking.
On-street parking is a big barrier for cities that want to provide residents with bike- and scooter-friendly roads. It is not a comfortable arrangement. Anyone who has ever ridden a bike or a scooter in a city knows the stress of being sandwiched between block-after-block of parked cars on one side and high-speed traffic on the other. Throw in a double-parked delivery vehicle in your path, and you really get a full cardio workout (or at least, the elevated heart rate).
Additionally, reducing on-street parking is not exactly an unprecedented strategy during the time of COVID. Several cities are already giving curb-side space back to the public. By eliminating parked cars and scheduling street closures during off-peak traffic hours, residents have a place to get outside. Local businesses and restaurants have a way to stay open and stay socially distanced. There’s a restored sense of community, and many city dwellers are hopeful that these changes will continue beyond the pandemic.
The benefits to a city are clear. Reducing on-street parking promotes safety—providing room for bikes and scooters to move freely without being pushed into traffic or onto the sidewalks. Moving parked cars off the street reduces congestion (and pollution) caused by double-parked delivery vehicles or drivers clumsily trying to parallel park.
Perhaps most beneficial of all is that this approach is low cost. There are no significant infrastructure investments. Streets will not need to be closed to make this conversion. Enabling micro-mobility takes the space that cities already have, removes the giant stationary objects, and makes more room for people in motion.