Congestion pricing keeps getting more popular in New York. In Montreal, the program of pedestrian-only streets in summer has been confirmed for the next three years. And voters in Paris voted heavily in favour of adding trees and restricting vehicles on 500 streets.
These initiatives will all make their cities nicer to live in. But they have something else in common: in all three cases, controversial new ideas showed immediate, concrete benefits – building an early constituency.
But getting to that quick payoff can be hard. Some policy changes provoke loud opposition and don’t get off the drawing board. Others take too long to show benefits.
Take the Broadway Plan in Vancouver. Many residents have voiced concerns about development planned along a coming subway line, which would allow high-rises amid houses on nearby residential streets. Vancouver needs to grow, but these are substantive changes to neighbourhoods.
There should be benefits as well for existing residents, visible as soon as possible. The city could add public space, or discount commercial rents along Broadway to jump-start the retail resurgence the coming influx of residents should bring.
The value of making visible progress on tough issues is an important lesson for mayors to grasp. It’s not that critics should be ignored. But a good idea sometimes takes a while to win converts. Fortitude may matter as much as vision and it helps if the policy shows early results. In time, going back to the old policy comes to seem ridiculous.
This is what happened in the Netherlands. More than 50 years ago, residents angry about road safety deaths launched demonstrations to Stop de Kindermoord, which translates as “stop the child murder.” Through protest and advocacy, they helped launch a transport revolution that eventually became so popular as to be politically untouchable.
New York’s congestion pricing policy, which involves charging most drivers to enter Manhattan below 60th street, was so controversial it nearly didn’t happen. State Governor Kathy Hochul lost her nerve last summer and killed a previous proposal, later reviving the idea but with a lower toll. But once it launched, in January, it showed immediate success.
A plurality of city opinion had moved behind the policy by March as data showed less traffic, faster buses and fewer complaints about honking, as well as a rise in retail sales and less pollution. In spite of these early strides, the policy faces opposition from President Donald Trump, who wants his administration to kill it. But he keeps delaying an order to turn off the cameras that underpin the system as Ms. Hochul, with increasing public support, vows to hold firm.
Montreal’s car-free streets also started amid conflicted feelings. Critics said they would be bad for business but the Federation of Canadian Municipalities gave the idea an award in 2018, noting increased foot traffic encouraged window shopping and made neighbourhoods appealing, “which promotes local businesses.” After one main road became pedestrian only, polling showed the change was supported by two-thirds of local businesses and 90 per cent of visitors.
Mayor Valerie Plante easily won election to a second term in 2021. She will not run again this fall but her urbanist legacy appears well-rooted. Critics of a plan to close permanently two parts of Ste-Catherine Street, making new plazas, are angling only to water down or modify the idea, not kill it.
In Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo beat back opposition and won converts as she acted quickly to replace a centre-city highway with a walking trail, add a vast bicycle network and create more than 100 “school streets,” where trees are planted and traffic reduced to protect children. The city is noticeably quieter and cleaner than even five years ago.
In March, residents voted two-to-one in favour of remaking another 500 streets. Critics point to abysmally lower turnout, and it’s true that only 4 per cent voted. But the counter-argument is that this suggests an issue that is too politically settled to get either side whipped up.
In 1971, French president Georges Pompidou said that Paris had to adapt both to the needs of residents and to “the needs of the automobile.” That was the mood of his era, but Ms. Hidalgo represents a 21st-century urban vision, and keeps making it happen.
Her greatest achievement may be showing the benefits of change quickly enough that she was able to bring the famously argumentative Parisians along with her. That is a lesson for mayors elsewhere in the value of the early win.