Using the categorization and conceptualization tools developed on page 1 and 2, we can generate a number of solutions to reduce inner city transportation. The list shown on the right does not attempt to be exhaustive, for particular cases one should revisit the tools, develop custom processes to come up with new solutions. This is a mere illustration of the tools at hand for all categories. The tools are ordered in three groups, in order of effort and carrot / stick ratio. One to discourage car use, which is by far the most dominant mode of problematic city transportation, number two, the improvement of public transportation, because travel will remain necessary and with properly designed and implemented systems we can work towards a sustainable public transportation network, and lastly the encouragement of no-energy modes such as cycling or walking, since those are the most preferred modes. Ideally one would want to achieve a steady development in importance from 1 to 3 over time.

1. Discourage car use
The use of the automobile for the transportation of people is often not necessary. In many places in the world where public transportation is effective and adequate, often cheaper and faster some people still prefer to use the car to perform their required travels. Discouraging the use of the car can introduce people who are not used to public transportation to its advantages and they might discover it is not so bad at all. for instance, when the Stockholm congestion pricing experiment started in 2001, 25% traffic reduction was achieved. When the experiment was over there was still a 8 to 10% permanent reduction even though the situation was exactly as it was before (1). This could only be explained by people who formerly rode a car to their destinations having discovered that public transport is not so bad, that it can provide some privacy and that one can listen to music and in addition read a book or a newspaper. What remains important is that the discouragement of car use needs to coincide with the improvement of public transportation. Congestion charging, as executed in Stockholm, was not a measure that just charged vehicles during busy hours of the day alone. It had a comprehensive public transportation improvement plan, it virtually doubled the bus fleet and added a great many new lines. And this is in a city that already has a superb public transportation system that almost never reaches full capacity. Discouraging car use as was planned in New York, without the public transportation improvement already implemented and ready before the charging starts, would just be another tax because the mode of the car for many is the only option. In addition, it would be a tax which only affects lower income travelers, and it would take away the opportunity for the mode switch tool to be used when it would be effective. Using the congestion tax to pay for future traffic improvements is not an effective strategy. If not sufficient funds are available to maintain and improve traffic systems in a city that is a structural political problem of budget distribution and priorities. It will not be solved by applying tools outside of their areas of design.

Many tools to be used in all three of the categories are psychological rather than material or economical. The aforementioned congestion charging in Stockholm for instance shows a great example of this. For 20 krones (2 euro) per passage in peak traffic to 5 krones (0,50 euro) this charge actually managed to reduce traffic in the city by up to 25%. The monetary value, however, does not even remotely weigh up to the cost of a car in Sweden. Fuel is four times as expensive (1.40 euro a liter) as in the united states at time wof writing, sales tax is 20% and environmental tax near 40% on a car. Not to mention insurance and maintenance. The congestion charge is thus nothing but a drop in the bucket, but the psychological effect of seeing money withdrawn from your bank account on a regular basis was enough to achieve such a change. It is not remarkable therefore that when the system was changed from billing every 5 days to every 14 (1), the effectiveness dropped. The psychological impact was less due to less charges being shown on the bank transaction sheets of everyone.

2. Public transportation improvements
These are mostly fairly obvious and the focus of many public transportation developments. Some of the important considerations if we’d like to go to a complete independency of the car is that the public network needs to accommodate for virtually all journeys performed by individuals. This means day and night. Many cities have no adequate night network while during the day it is sufficient for a select group. People visiting nightlife venues on friday night are then left to their own devices which encourages car use quite strongly, not to mention drunk driving issues. In Stockholm a good example is that the entire public transportation network follows the pattern of the people. So, when the clubs are open late (Friday and Saturday), the entire network stays active until 40 minutes after closing time. In 40 minutes everyone can reach the furthest ends of all the lines throughout the city. All services, bus, light rail and metro run frequently, 8 minutes maximum waiting time, they are clean and pleasant environments to be in. The metro system functions as a public art space with only minimal advertisements, which improves its status, feelings of safety and cleanliness and comfort. A single pass provides access to all modes of public transportation and clear well designed maps help plan journeys effectively, as well as a public transportation planner on the internet that uses all possible modes and gets you where you would like to be the fastest.

Many tools for public transportation are known and being worked on. Small things like frequent and verbose status updates, to the minute exact arrival and departure information and clear signage might seem small points but they increase the level of control a traveler feels he or she has. The car offers full control, and while public transportation can hardly be as flexible, it can certainly close the gap. Especially in the United States, where many public transportation networks are still in a mid 20th century state of mind, large strides can be made with small investments.

3. Encourage no-energy modes
In the end, the only truly sustainable way of living is by not relying on motorized transportation at all. But, our ever increasingly busy lives demand of us that we step up our ability to be in different places fast and often. The way to deal with this increase in traffic is a major problematic in the current city planning discourse, in combination with the drive to densify cities further. At the same time there is a call for less transportation due to detrimental environmental and organizational effects. Using modern technology and new ways of organizing our lives we can reduce commutes and other reasons for transportation, and living in a dense urban fabric may support a largely pedestrian or bicycle driven lifestyle. Providing the basic requirements for such conditions will take time and effort, but until these have been established the successful pedestrianization of an area in the city can see failure if not executed correctly. Several cities in the US have played with the idea and even performed some experiments but due to poor planning, execution and maintenance these areas have often failed, giving them a bad name among US city planners. At the same time very succesful schemes have been developed in other places. Many city centers of the old cities of Europe have become partially or fully pedestrianized and new urban developments are being built with pedestrianization as its major mode of transport.

In the next article, the Pedestrianizaton Tools Survey, a set of tools will be discussed that can be directly applied to the built environment, and that deal mostly with part 3, the encouragament of no-energy modes.