January 26, 2023
Mexico City began changing course in 2012 by completing a major street redesign in the historic city center, opening Line 4 of the successful Metrobús BRT. This significant extension connects the center to the airport. It also piloted a comprehensive on-street parking reform program (ecoParq), expanded its successful public bike system (Ecobici), and revitalized public spaces such as Alameda Central and Plaza Tlaxcoaque. In the following years, Mexico City has continued this progress, opening more lines of Metrobus on complete street networks, reclaiming more public spaces for pedestrians, and passing a groundbreaking parking reform policy, North America’s most advanced of its kind.
The United States developed the well-known model of highways and urban sprawl that defines much of the region’s land-use policies. Canadian and Mexican cities have developed in similar ways, increasing the space allocated to car use and urban highways, which has made the urban streetscape hostile to pedestrians and cyclists. Canadian and American cities also offer some compelling best practices. The cities of Montreal, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver all boast well-known, vibrant, and walkable downtowns, as well as high-quality public transportation systems.
Yet, the majority of Americans and Canadians do not have access to quality, frequent transit service where they live and work, and even fewer have solutions for the “last mile”. For most, getting where they need to go still requires a car. As traffic congestion increases in cities throughout the region, road fatalities worsen, housing markets become tighter, and the effects of climate change become more pronounced, there are growing calls for Americans, in particular, to reconsider the amount of space they allocate to cars and highway infrastructure.
