Mobility Is Dead: Post-pandemic Planning as an Opportunity to Prioritize Sustainability and Accessibility

Abstract

This chapter reflects upon the challenges and opportunities posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to everyday mobility. I make the argument here that in a world where (more public) forms of everyday mobility are directly implicated in the transmission of disease vectors, cycling more than ever has a role to play, but it is a role that will only be realized if we meet the bigger challenge of rearranging our towns and cities to minimize the need for mobility by increasing accessibility. Whilst media and commentators have been quick to jump on cycling increases during British lockdowns as evidence of the public’s desire to finally embrace it, the evidence suggests that the public’s desire remains strongest for leisure cycling and that cars remain king for more utilitarian journeys. Moreover, many of those who are still obliged to make physical journeys for social reproduction are those least likely to favour cycling: women, ethnic minorities and those on low incomes. Whilst there are welcome (if insufficient) moves afoot to enhance the safety of cycling through investments in infrastructure, I argue here that the more difficult, sustainable, just, human-scale, and long-term solution is to invest in changing the shape, size, composition, and layout of towns and cities to limit the demand for mobility; and to increase the likelihood that what mobility is required can be satisfied through sustainable and active modes, and accessed by the widest possible range of users. A crucial consideration in the near term is to change regulations to ensure that land uses can be rezoned quickly and effectively so that retail, work places, meeting places, health services, and activity centres are more dispersed amongst residences and concentrated at public transport interchanges where public transport, Mobility as a Service, and active travel all intersect.