Brave New City | Getting Around

In order for a model city of the future to be sustainable from an environmental, social, and economic standpoint, it must support a seamless transportation network. Movement is key to negotiating the impact of urban growth, and the city of the future must adapt to meet the varied and sometimes unpredictable needs of an urban population. If a city informed by density is to be successful, it must be balanced with open public spaces with access to light and fresh air, uncluttered by infrastructure. An efficient, flexible, “all access” transportation network addresses the needs of a dense, urban population in search of both livability and mobility.

The transit hub of this inclusive city serves users by weaving a multitude of transit options together, offering choices with variations in typology, speed, and exertion. The hub, varying in size appropriate to its location, is a cross-over point, allowing fluid transitions between transport modes through intelligent circulation. These carefully orchestrated connections coupled with an array of transit options allow for flexibility and diversity in day- to-day transit. The hub also delivers synergistic opportunities that arise from a concentrated population. Adjacent parks, event spaces, gathering places, and social attractors are easily fed by transit. This kind of synergy activates the city, allowing people to reach the elements that enrich their lives. Rather than building from the ground up, new transit systems will have to modulate and adapt to existing infrastructure or find new space by taking advantage of air space and the street grid. The current at-grade street grid is turned over primarily to pedestrians and other low impact modes of transportation. Faster moving transit utilizes subterranean or aerial structures, traveling over longer distances and with more limited access.

A variety of transit options, easily accessible from one another and from the street grid, that support mobility, access, and even health, set the stage for transit hubs to be vital urban centers.

See the other Brave New City articles here.