CLC-ULI Joint Research: 10 Ideas to Prepare Cities for a Car-Lite Urban Mobility Future

The “car-lite” concept promises a new urban mobility model that is environmental friendly, socially inclusive and economically efficient. But how can cities go about achieving this ideal? The latest joint research project by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and the Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC) on "Creating Liveable Cities Through Car-lite Urban Mobility" makes 10 key recommendations on how transport and urban practitioners can move towards a sustainable and car-lite mobility ecosystem.

The preliminary research recommendations were presented earlier today at the World Cities Summit 2016. The response panel of esteemed city and industry leaders like Morten Kabell, Mayor for Environmental and Technical Affairs, Copenhagen; Konrad Otto-Zimmermann, Creative Director of the Urban Idea and Former Secretary-General ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability); Gabe Klein, Former Transportation Chief of Chicago and Washington DC; Kim Soo-hyun, President Seoul Institute; Dr Limin Hee, Director of Research, CLC; and Scott Dunn, Vice President, Southeast Asia AECOM and Past Chair, ULI Singapore, shared their personal experiences and perspectives on the role of sustainable urban mobility in creating liveable cities.

As part of the research process, two multi-stakeholder workshops were organised in Singapore in the 1st half of 2016. More than 120 policy makers, experts, practitioners and industry representatives from diverse disciplines such as transport, urban planning, design and real estate development came together to share their insights and challenges (please refer to Annex A). The key discussion points generated were further developed, condensed and featured in the e-publication as “10 Ideas to Prepare Cities for a Car-lite Future” (please refer to Annex B). In summary, the 10 ideas are:

i. Align visions, both internally and externally

ii. Focus on people’s needs, work with competition and find win-win solutions

iii. Create development-based mobility demand management strategies

iv. Expand public transport amenities to cover the first-and-last-mile

v. Planning Matters!

vi. Put a stop to cheap and easy parking

vii. Turn street design on its head

viii. Use public spaces as common ground for public-private-people collaborations

ix. Drive change through data-driven research and pilots

x. Change mindsets and make car-lite mobility cool

The research was made possible with support from the ULI Urban Innovation Grant program, which is funded by the ULI Foundation Annual Fund. The Fund supports ULI projects across the globe that foster collaboration between the public and private sector around responsible land use with the goal of building thriving, healthy communities worldwide.

“Singapore is already one of the forerunning cities in the world when it comes to promoting sustainable mobility. Looking ahead, going car-lite is something that should happen to make the city-state more liveable. The more important thing is to really approach mobility from people’s perspective, not cars. We hope this joint publication will contribute in some way towards shaping a better mobility future and complement the government’s ongoing efforts by inviting contributions of inputs and ideas from other stakeholders”, said Mr Khoo Teng Chye, Executive Director, CLC.

“Sustainable urban mobility is important to both emerging cities that are forming and existing cities that are redeveloping”, said ULI Chief Executive Officer, Patrick L. Phillips. “This latest research collaboration between CLC and ULI looks into the intricate relationship between sustainable mobility and the liveable urban environment. We hope lessons distilled will also be useful to other cities facing similar urban mobility challenges. ”

The e-publication in full can be found here.

You can also access a video on the project here.