15-Minute Cities
Creating Sustainable, Livable Urban Environments
While IrishEVs places a particular emphasis on promoting electric cars as a leading way to reduce your carbon footprint – with transport accounting for 20% of Ireland’s emissions – we’re conscious that they are not a full solution in themselves.
In fact, if we are to avoid the worst climate change outcomes, we will need to dramatically reduce the number of cars on our roads and redesign urban environments to promote pedestrianisation and cycling, while also making it easier for people to buy locally-sourced produce.
While we’re already seeing a slow movement towards increased pedestrianisation in Irish towns and cities in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, a bigger movement is fast gathering pace: The 15-minute city.
What is a 15-minute city?
In short, the core principal of a 15-minute city is that residents will be able to access all the goods and services that they need in their daily life within a 15 minute walk or cycle of their front door.
This means that anyone should be able to access their work, shops, entertainment, healthcare services or education without having to use a car to get to them.
As such, cities will invest in cycle infrastructure, pedestrianise roads, and look at how they can better spread amenities across the city.
Not only will this reduce the amount of harmful emissions created by cars and traffic congestion, but it will also free-up land dedicated to parking infrastructure, allowing the creation of more affordable housing, or even create new parks
“Cities now consume more than two-thirds of the world’s energy, while creating 70% of CO2 emissions”
Will this work in Ireland?
Dublin is one of a number of European cities assessing the 15-minute city concept to create a more liveable and sustainable urban environment.
It is an exemplar of how poor urban design impacts our daily life, with heavy investment in hotel and office construction leaving little room for affordable housing – driving up rent and forcing people out of the city to commute from ever greater distances to reach their place of work.
Dublin’s economic power has significant impacts on the counties surrounding it - with increased commuting driving high levels of harmful emissions
As such, Dublin has been designed to work for visitors rather than its resident population. This is particularly noticeable in 2020, when trade in the city has decreased by 60% with the lack of international tourists and the lockdown confining commuters to their homes.
Furthermore, with the population of Ireland projected to grow to 5.6 million people by 2040, a further 500,000 houses will need to be built – 75% of which will be built in the hinterland around the Capital, with the 11 counties in the East of the country effectively becoming commuter towns for Dublin, according to the government’s Project Ireland 2040.
Therefore, the steps that Dublin takes to provide a better quality of life in a more sustainable city will have significant knock-on effects throughout the country, lowering rental prices, bringing financial benefits from Dublin salaries being spent in the counties where commuters live, and significantly reducing emissions from ever-greater commutes and congestion.
Additionally, the resulting improvements in quality of life are also expected to improve mental health, while reduced emissions will increase general public health.
To find out more about the health benefits, see our article on Speed Limits: Improving Public & Environmental Health.
Impact on climate change
One in eight deaths in the EU is directly attributable to air pollution and climate change, according to the European Environment Agency, with the cars we drive acting as a leading contributor to this figure and the climate crisis overall.
By reducing the number of cars on our roads we will be able to dramatically reduce the amount of = carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and methane entering the air –harmful greenhouse gases that are leading causes of climate change.
Redesigning our cities is essential, as increased urban sprawl and rising urbanisation means that cities now consume more than two-thirds of the world’s energy, while creating 70% of CO2 emissions.
Paris – the city leading the charge on the 15-minute city concept – is aiming to remove 60,000 cars from its streets, turning their parking spaces into small parks, playgrounds and allotments. Their investment in new cycle infrastructure over recent years has already seen the number of cyclists in the city grow by 54% year-on-year.
A breakdown of where Ireland’s emissions are coming from. Credit: CIE
Trials are ongoing in multiple cities around the world to put this into practice and put hard data against the concept to show that it works, but it is important that such studies are expedited and that we take swift action to adopt more sustainable practices – after all, we only have seven years to act.
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