Letters

Letters

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Will the 15-minute city make Iowa City golden in 2021?

In March, as part of its Science on Screen program, FilmScene aired a documentary, Bikes vs Cars. The film documents the escalating problem for major urban areas like São Paulo, Brazil; Paris, France; and Los Angeles brought on by cars. The film not only highlights the growing air pollution and congestion, but the unsustainable costs to add roads and accommodations for vehicles. By contrast, bikes are increasingly being accommodated.

So, as we begin National Bike Month, May, how does Iowa City stack up in creating an alternative to the need for cars? Certainly, we’re nowhere close to major urban areas and their response to the issue. Fortunately, a recent concept in urban planning, the 15-minute city, offers an eloquent response to the issue.

The “15-minute city” may be defined as an ideal geography where most human needs and many desires are located within a travel distance of 15 minutes. While automobiles may be accommodated in the 15-minute city, they cannot determine its scale or urban form. Based on automobile travel, most metropolitan areas may be 15-minute cities.

Politicians and urban planners around the world are seeing the 15-minute city as an approach to responding to the car-centric ways of the past. This approach puts people and their needs at the center of urban planning by locating goods and services within 15 minutes by walking or biking. Most famously, Mayor Anne Hidalgo successfully won reelection in Paris, France in 2020 by expounding on this idea, and candidates in the current New York City mayoral race have been bandying the idea around, too.

The Modern World

Tom Tomorrow

What does this mean for Iowa City, and how do we get the League of American Bicyclists’ gold-level Bike Friendly Community designation later this year?

When I began working at the university, I realized that I could bike to my office and, because car parking was several blocks away, be there in less time than driving. This proved true for many services, like food shopping and banking, too. Even biking to football games was easier than dealing with game day traffic.

This is the concept of the 15-minute city and an idea Iowa City should exploit! Fifteen minutes represents about three miles on a bike. If the center of a three-mile radius was the Old Capitol, the east edge of the circle would be Scott Boulevard, the west edge West High School, the north edge north of I-80 and the south edge the Johnson County Fairgrounds or Trueblood Recreation Area; that's a lot of our community. FOr the Towncrest or Mormon Trek shopping areas, a two-mile radius covers a large portion of their shoppers.

Futile Wrath

Sam Locke Ward