curb management
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Curb Management: A Practical Start to Implementing Smart Mobility in Your Community

Curb Management: A Practical Start to Implementing Smart Mobility in Your Community

The meaning of “mobility” in transportation has morphed as technologies and societal trends have evolved.

Though not completely new (think taxicabs), today’s mobility challenges encompass on-demand ridesharing, e-scooters, e-bikes, shared economy delivery services, the expansion of delivery services, autonomous vehicles, vertical take-off and landing vehicles, and the infrastructure that’s needed to support each of these modes of transportation.

Yet, as the array of mobility methods grows and new technologies emerge, communities face new questions as they strive to cope with the pressures on their roads, streets, and sidewalks. If recent experiences have shown us anything, it’s that tomorrow’s mobility technologies won’t ask for permission … they will arrive on our streets first and beg for forgiveness afterwards.

Current and future modes of mobility must integrate with land use and urban design at the curb, making curb management — a focus on the transition space between streets and sidewalks — critical to the incorporation of new modes of mobility and their impact on a community’s land use and multi-modal planning efforts.

TYLin’s Mobility Planning Group in Ontario, Canada, maintains that investing in curbside management is a practical starting point for communities to manage existing and future needs, mitigate maintenance costs, and create new placemaking opportunities by focusing on getting more out of what already exists rather than building new and costly infrastructure.

Click to read the complete article, “Curb Management: A PRACTICAL START TO IMPLEMENTING SMART MOBILITY IN YOUR COMMUNITY.” It originally appeared in Ontario Traffic Magazine and is republished with the approval of the Ontario Traffic Council.