The urban planner and architect highlighted the need to build the best and most organized urban policies for impassable cities: “a developed country is not where the poor have cars, where the rich travel by public transport.”
During the second forum of the National Assembly “Rethinking the Future in Green”, organized by the Green Party, urban planner Jeff Speck highlighted the need to work on the design of “more walkable” cities, for a better quality of life for people.
Smith opened the conversation by thanking Green for his invitation and interest in hearing his message, before stating that it was the first time he had been appointed to an act of this kind by a political organization.
For his participation, Speck highlighted in particular the economic impact of poor mobility policy, which involves the movement of people, since countries like the United States of America spend an average of 20% of their revenues on transportation and the impact is greater on areas with fewer resources. which end up investing up to 40% of their income. Similarly, there is a relationship between urban expansion and public health, when private businesses favor the use of cars or have a destination for long-distance travel to contribute to less healthy societies that reach the mortality rate.
He stated that the bet on the use of electric cars is not entirely green, since they also generate an environmental impact and contribute to prodigious costs of living: “It is what we call urban displacement and the model is very unstable”, he pointed out. .
Jeff Speck highlighted the need to optimize and reorganize urban plans to build accessible cities and promote another means of mobility to reduce road congestion, considering as a rule to arrange housing density for transit and transition to housing density.
Later, he recognized the efforts of some states, including the city of Mexico, to promote the growth of fewer parking spaces, when there are more spaces of this type, the more the use of private cars is promoted: “the country is developed. not where the cars are poor, where public transport is rich journey,’ he argued.
He added that the idea that obstruction can be removed through the streets, which is the whole story, since there are studies which prove that, when the opportunity is added to a street or road, these new spaces are immediately occupied; which also contributes to faster roads, in which there is a higher incidence of accidents.
In this sense, the urban planner has recognized the efforts in places like Mexico City to provide citizens with infrastructure such as bike paths, while remembering the need to clean and deliver them so that garbage can only be used to work. heavy traffic. .
Finally, he stated that it is relevant to the quality of life of citizens to promote public policies for access to public transportation, to supply bicycles, to repair streets to make them safer, to change regulations to reduce speed. which cars travel and work to exclude the widening of roads that promote the use of private cars, such as long trips to schools and/or work centers.
For their part, the representatives, legislators, councilors and members of the Green Ecologist agreed that a direct effort is needed to improve the urban plans of the Mexican state, with a focus on sustainability.
