'Mind Your Own Business': radical spatial planning for mobility.

People in cities are getting fed up with 'outsiders' driving into their cities, causing congestion, air pollution and occupying scarce parking space. Countrymen, on the other hand, are getting frustrated with townsfolk imposing their know-it-all urban rules on rural areas. This essay proposes a thought-provoking model where everybody can just 'mind their own businesses'. What if we divide the country in 30 x 30 km zones. In which you can drive as much as you like. But you can't get out of the zone .. by car. Would this solve our mobility issues?

The last decades, cities have installed a lot of measures to limit the freedom of the automobile: parking fees, pedestrian areas, limited parking time, congestion charging, circulation plans, even bigger pedestrian areas and low emission zones. With effect! While the policies to restrict car-usage have increased, the dependency of city dwellers on their four-wheelers has decreased (in Ghent, where I live, only half the families in the city centre owns a car - article in Dutch).

If you are subtracting value from a community by driving through it, why should the community let you?

Still, a lot of cars drive through our cities (The Guardian: How London got rid of private cars - and grew more congested than ever). A substantial part of traffic: commuters, tourists, shoppers, delivery vans .. comes from outside the city. Traffic that contributes to air pollution, congestion, land use, traffic accidents, .. and makes living in cities less pleasant. How tolerant should citizens be towards guests? Does hospitality have its limits? In a lot of cases, the answer is: yes. In some houses you are expected to take your shoes off. No matter how much your footgear costed, or how fast you can run wearing it. It seems logical that also cities ask you to leave your car at the doorstep. If you are subtracting value from their community by driving through, why should they let you?

It's just the basic rule of hospitality. Country people, visitors, outsiders, commuters, shoppers, .. are welcome in cities if they 'act in Rome as the Romans do'. It is perfectly understandable that a car is today by far the best way to get around on the countryside, but it is not in our crowded cities. And even if it is with great empathy that townspeople regard rural transportation patterns, doesn't mean that these patterns should be maintained when travelling through very dense urban fabric. It's not because some acknowledge the beliefs of cannibalistic tribes, they will feed them their children when they visit their cities.

It's not because not because we acknowledge the beliefs of some cannibalistic tribes, we will feed them our children when they visit our cities.

Cities might have come to a point where they can't further discourage car-usage from visitors, or tighten the mobility policies, without harming their own citizens. Because it's unfair in two ways. First of all, the rules apply 365 days a year to inhabitants of the city. This means the impact is exponentially bigger for those who live there day after day than for an occasional visitor. Secondly, the rules in big cities need to be much stricter than in a situation where you only would have to limit the nuisance of the mobility of your own inhabitants. The rules, fines, taxes and other dissuasive measures must be persuasive enough to also limit the mobility of another huge group of people, the ones from the outside visiting your city.

Tightening the restrictions to a level that discourages car-usage from outsiders means that the mobility of a large group of your own citizens is strongly limited. Policies to make urban areas more liveable risk achieving the opposite, at least for some. Cities are eating their own children. In Belgium, for example, Low emission zones and sky-high prices for parking have raised intense discussions on the social consequences for low-income households (Network against poverty: LEZ has a negative social impact without investments in public transport - in Dutch).

The solution has been, to a limited extent, to make the restrictions less stringent for inhabitants. People who live in the city can park (one car per household) for free in blue zones. A year pass can be bought for some of the Low Emission Zones. Residents can drive through pedestrian areas and limited groups of people are permitted to ignore some of the circulation measures introduced in big cities. However, making restrictions less severe for some than others has its limitations, and those limitations have probably been reached. Rules based on the mode of transport (where Ronaldo in a Ferrari is equal to your grandmother in a Lada) or an 'our people first' policy (if you live here, you can mess it up here) won't make urban mobility better. A successful diversification strategy should diversify between the intentions of car users: why are you using a car? Do you have an alternative? Is there added economic or social value for the community? And that is not yet possible today.

A lot of cities are isolated islands with firm car restrictions, while the rest of the country does not see a need to impose such regulations. Ironically, restrictions in big cities are mainly there to reduce the impact of outsiders driving into or around those urban nodes. This divide is not a sustainable base for the future. If measures can't be further imposed inside cities, a possible solution is extending urban mobility policies to the rest of the country or region. In Flanders, examples are attempts to introduce a low emission zone covering the entire region (6 million inhabitants - article in Dutch) or an area-wide kilometre tax (car-users have to pay a tax for every kilometre driven - article).

However, these ideas have mostly disappeared from political agendas after strong opposition from the public opinion. It doesn't make sense to apply the same regulations everywhere. It seems obvious that the policies making sense in Brussels (5.573 inhabitants / km2) are no match for Zuienkerke (55 inhabitants / km2). Comparing pictures of both municipalities makes this quite clear.

Let's take the case of Zuienkerke. There are few alternatives to car usage for covering the long distances between home, work, school, shops, leisure, .. The spatial spread of daily needs makes walking or cycling highly ineffective. The consequences of car-usage are not that sensible and today there's no better alternative to the automobile. So, why not let people use their cars?

There's few issues with automobile usage in Zuienkerke, so why wouldn't locals be able to drive if they jointly think that individual car use adds economical, cultural, social, .. value to the municipality? The trouble is that people from such towns take their car to, let's say, Brussels. And while Zuienkerkians can perfectly think that car usage adds value to their community, people in Brussels can reasonably argue that cars from Zuienkerke stink. How do we solve the issue that the same car can be beneficial here and hateful somewhere else?

The solution might lie in something communities have been excelling at: deciding what they don't want in their backyard (the so-called NIMBYism). Let's turn it around and have communities define what mobility behaviour is adding - and what is subtracting - value. If a certain region thinks it's OK to have five cars per household and drive miles by car as a form of mental distraction, that's perfectly fine. There is only one major concern to solve: how can we avoid that a mobility policy in one region causes nuisance in another?

As a thought experiment, i'd like to propose the 'Mind Your Own Business' model for mobility planning. It ensures that every region can decide whatever they think best. And that the consequences of these decisions are only felt locally. The main idea: individuals can use their car as much as their own region allows, but if they want to get out of the region, they should leave their cars at the border. If we would like to implement such a concept, what would it look like? A step-by-step mental exercise:

1. Divide the country into sectors

First, we divide the territory into sectors or 'transport regions'. By using natural borders (highways, railways, waterways) the country is divided into sectors of about 30 x 30 kilometer.

Each sector will have full autonomy to decide upon its own mobility policies. However, there is one rule to rule them all: people cannot leave their own sector by car (unless perhaps in the case of emergencies). This could be enforced by geofencing. The borders will by no means be additional physical borders. Walking and cycling will always be possible, without limitations.

2. Build transfer zones

As travelling between sectors will remain needed and possible, zones will be built where people can leave their car and transfer to another means of transport. These zones will be built on the border of two or three adjacent sectors to increase efficiency. Passengers can leave their car and switch to, for example, a local or high-speed train.

When arriving at another sector, passengers can transfer to a shuttle bus, a taxi, a local train, or why not, a (shared) car. If all people in a sector agree that sky blue Lamborghini's are the best means of transport, they can make them available at this transfer zone, so they can be driven within the sector.

3. Convert highways

As nobody can drive out of their own sector, highways become useless stretches of concrete. So, let's convert them. One lane can be used for high-speed transit to interconnect cities and a second one to connect small stations with the high-speed transit network.

In case of a third lane, it can be reserved for exceptional vehicle traffic like emergency services. As most logistics will be handled by mass transit, there will be no space needed for trucks either.

As we are re-imagining our world, we should not stick to old technology. The 'trackless train' tested in China would be a more versatile and cheaper solution than building new train tracks on our highways. There is only need to add paint markings on the roads, roads that can still be used by other vehicles if this would be necessary.

4. Add railways and stations

The railway system now consists of the old tracks that were already there and the new lines built on highways. As both systems were created from a city-based, rather than a sector-based approach, connections will be added to better link underserved areas.

This means that also new stations will be needed. Each sector should at least have one high-speed station and four smaller stations.

For a 30 x 30 km sector, this means that in theory a high-speed station should be max. 15 km away and small station always are within walking or cycling distance (max 7,5 km). Of course, people living within one sector, can use stations in nearby sectors and get there by foot, bike, or shuttle.

Again, there is no need to think in traditional forms of public transport. Small, but very frequent vehicles with specific destinations could be more efficient than large trains. As we do not want to depend on futuristic technologies, we can accommodate this on current infrastructures, including drivers. A shift to new technology is only desirable if a concept or mobility system has proven to work.

5. Setup a logistics network

One on itself should be able to travel comfortably by mass transit in the concept described. That includes people with reduced mobility. The infrastructure and service levels will have to be increased significantly, reorienting our highway administrations and budgets towards public transport.

One of the big hurdles could be taking stuff with you. Travelling should be a smooth and pleasant experience, without luggage or tools making transfers a drag. If you're travelling with 'things', the basic rule should be that the 'things' arrive earlier, or at the latest, at the same time as yourself.

Electrical pick-up and delivery vans can pick up your stuff whenever you want and bring it to logistical hubs within your sector. Even cargo robots are an option, as they are already being in use in Milton Keynes, for example.

In each sector, there will be a central distribution centre for sending and receiving goods. Between the distribution centra, there should be plenty of fast options to distribute luggage and cargo, as the traditional rails can be used, expanded with new connections and highway lanes turned into tracks.

As there are so many connections between hubs, the 'Mind Your Own Business' concept could be great to test 'the physical internet', that proposes to treat physical packages as information packets on the internet.

6. Improve local mobility

Each sector can decide for itself how it prefers to organise mobility within the sector. It will be possible, and necessary, to take responsibility for the benefits and consequences of the mobility policies in the sector.

The concept will force people and their representatives to think about what they want and to take a stand without the possibility to blame others. Air pollution and traffic accidents will be caused by locals, and locals will suffer from it. But also the benefits from the ability to use cars freely, will accrue to the local community.

From the beginning, it will be important to follow-up on a number of parameters: accidents, air pollution, traffic noise, time 'lost' while travelling, the direct and indirect cost of transport, economic activity and inquiries on how safe parents think it is to cycle to school with children, how free elderly people feel to move, ... It will be interesting to follow-up what choices every sector makes, what the consequences are and how this compares to other areas.

NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES of the 'mind your own business' concept

> Dividing a country or region in sectors based on natural borders (highways, rails, rivers) makes sense from a mobility perspective, but it will conflict with the existing municipal boundaries. One municipality or city could see itself being divided in multiple sectors, or one sector can span (parts of) several municipalities. This means that it will make no sense to have local councils decide on the mobility policies for the sector, and new councils should be established for this purpose. Another solution is to respect the existing municipal boundaries, but this would make the situation extremely complex and difficult to read by road users and inhabitants. One side of the street could belong to one sector, the other side of the street to another. Such situations are to be avoided.

> For some suburban areas or towns, their connection by car could be cut off from bigger cities they depend on. This is exactly the point of the concept, but it might be problematic, as other smaller municipalities could lie in the same sector as the big city and have continued car connectivity. This would give those same-sector municipalities huge advantages, at least in the first years. Additional policies would have to be put in place, so outsiders are (under most conditions) requested to leave their car at a Park + Ride facility outside the city. This would imply equality for all those working in, or visiting the city.

> It would get more difficult for plumbers, roofers, electricians, construction companies, etc. to work outside their sector. It would be perfectly possible, as tools and goods (also in big quantities) should be able to travel at the speed of humans. Nevertheless, tools, construction materials etc. should be transported in boxes or containers that can easily fit on a train. Other solutions are to allow professionals to cross sectoral borders, or allowing them to exchange their vans for pods that can make use of the existing high-speed connections between sectors.

> If the concept does not go hand in hand with smart spatial planning policies, it will be a disaster for the countryside. As travel times should be quite constant throughout the country and a train station is always a bike ride away, it wouldn't matter where you live. So, without restrictions, people could go and live on the most beautiful spots, while still being well-connected. A strong policy, like a "concrete stop" (agreement to no longer consume open green space for new construction, but 'recycle' existing sites) would be needed to preserve nature and the countryside.

> If the concept was only to be applied to one region our country, some arrangements will have to be made with adjacent countries. Although, if all citizens of a country manage to take a train for nearly everything, it could be expected of foreigners to do the same, if they want to get through.

> It would take a skilled dictator or worldwide pandemic to introduce such a concept.

POSITIVE ASPECTS of the 'mind your own business' concept

> The concept relies only on policy and a transport vision. Compared to a lot of other ideas, it is not founded on technology. As described above, technical innovations can make life easier for those travelling within the concept, but technology is not a prerequisite to make the concept work.

> Long-distance car traffic, the high concentration of cars in and around big cities and their negative consequences, will diminish. The concept would, with immediate effect, get rid of most traffic deaths, air pollution and congestion. It would allow us to free up a lot of space used for parking, and do something nice with it.

> The concept would, for large parts, diminish mobility poverty and establish mobility equality on the assumption that public transport would be affordable. And it should: we already have public transport and we're already paying for it, we just need to extend it. We can get rid of billions of dollars cars are costing society every year.

> It would be fun.

What do you think of this thought experiment? What would it mean to your journeys? Does it make sense? Does it have pro's or cons I didn't think of? Leave your thoughts as a comment or send them to me by mail, and I'll add them to make the idea above better (if OK for you).