Citation

Mora R, Rocco V. J. Transp. Health 2018; 9: S18-S19.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jth.2018.05.073

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Since the nineties, many cities in developed countries, especially in North America and Australia, have initiated strategies aimed at tackling their acute obesity problem. Promoting more active lifestyles has become a central part of contemporary urban policies in American, Canadian, Australian, and, to a lesser extent, European cities. One of the strategies to achieve this goal has been to transform auto-centered streets into safe, inclusive and vibrant places. That strategy has been known as the Complete Streets paradigm. Usually, these initiatives involve modifying street layouts to accommodate cyclists and transit as well as constructing street amenities that encourage a more active use on the part of visitors are residents. To date, there is evidence that these initiatives have lowered traffic speeds, thus increasing street safety and livability. It has been also reported that Complete Street strategies tend to improve non-motorized trips as well as increase land prices values. However, until now, most evidence comes from auto-centric, developed contexts (especially coming from USA), where cultural patterns are heavily inclined towards the private automobile. But what are the effects of Complete Street strategies in less developed (and car-dependent) contexts? This is the main question of this presentation. It examines the effects of a Complete Street initiative built on Pocuro Street in 1997 in Santiago, Chile. It looks at land prices, real estate activity and street vitality. Land price valuation was assessed through a detailed inspection of all commercial transactions in the last 30 years on Pocuro Street and two parallel streets of similar nature; whereas, real estate activity was evaluated by analyzing municipal permissions in the same period. Finally, urban vitality was assessed by observing people´s flows and street occupation. The results show that during the Complete Street project, real estate activity grew by 224%, (compared to a 30% increment in parallel streets), whereas an econometric assessment of land prices showed a slight but statistically significant increment of of land prices in Pocuro Street with respect to the control streets. Moreover, the flow of people reached about 1600 people/hour, meaning that Pocuro Street is being used continuously by men and women even well past 11pm in wintertime (where sunset occurs at 5:30pm and temperature drops heavily), and that the road has become a highly desirable location for commercial and residential uses.