Transforming our streets for the common good, while creating business opportunities, engaging communities and without forgetting people with disabilities!
Transport & Mobility is becoming way more than a way to go from one place to another or deliver goods.
With new disruptive markets only at the beginning of their journey like food deliveries, click and collect, quick commerce, Electric Vehicles and other mobility services, the possibilities for “circular markets” are endless around them.
In early June I joined the annual Walking and Cycling Conference in The City.
There, I was pleasantly surprised to see how Hackney, other boroughs of London and other cities have been leading experiential projects to adapt our streets to the evolution of our needs: reducing air pollution whilst creating social and nature hubs to not only “take from people” but also offer them something else in return to achieve their sustainability targets and engage their communities during the process.
“Change is never easy but residents always ended up satisfied with the new infrastructures.”
With more places for social gatherings and local events, more playgrounds for our children, more green and more security, boroughs are going beyond reducing transport.
They are reducing their emissions whilst creating social value and creating new business opportunities for local businesses (exactly in alignment with the CSN vision): Mastercard even analysed the evolution of the average spent in recently converted pedestrian streets and the results are positive!
Among presentations from the Deputy Mayor of Transport for London, the chair of Living Streets, the Chair of the Planning & Transportation Committee at City of London Corporation, the Mayor of Hackney and Transport for All (to represent people with disabilities = there is still so much work to be done in that area, please have consultants on board for all your projects), I got the privilege to listen to a fantastic presentation from a senior consultant, Alexandra Doran from Steer, a global business consultancy working across cities, infrastructure and transport. Of course, I had to invite her to our next CSN event in September.
Come and meet us on September 20th to be part of the discussion and join a supportive, cross-sector community ready to take action.
