Utah is planning a new city where everything will be within 15 minutes by bike: this is The Point

Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes is about how long it lasts el tema ‘Dogs’, de Pink Floyd, how long it takes to cover around two and a half kilometers if you train frequently, how long the short wash program of a washing machine or what it takes you to prepare an envelope soup. Fifteen minutes is also the time in which those responsible for The Point, a neighborhood that they are planning from scratch in Utah (USA) in the purest Utopia style, they want their future residents to be able to get anywhere on foot or by bike in your day to day.

They are not the first to pursue the coveted goal of “the city of fifteen minutes”. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has recognized that dreams that his neighbors can go from home to the office, the supermarket or school in a fifteen-hour walk without having to take the car. Come on, that in a radius of 15 minutes on foot or by bike anyone can find the most basic services. In Spain, metropolises such as Valencia, Barcelona or Pontevedra They have also bet by models of “chrono-urbanism” more adapted to its inhabitants.

From prison to example of mobility

The case of Utah is striking, however, for several reasons. First, because part of zero; second, because he wants to reduce the cars that circulate in the area to a minimum; and third, and key, because it has managed to engage the administration and capture public interest.

The Point is projected on a wide expanse of 243 hectares of state land which now houses a prison that will be demolished in a matter of months. A curious past and an ideal surface for the objective of building a city adapted to the “quarter of an hour model”. Its managers plan to build a total of 7,400 homes and that the future inhabitants of The Point will not need more than one car per family. What’s more, they aspire to only get behind the wheel very occasionally.

And the rest of the time? How will mobility be articulated at The Point? Its territory will be designed in such a way that public transport, cycling and walking are prioritized.

There will be a restricted center strip which will be established as “pedestrian priority zone”, the houses will be built a short distance from schools, essential services and work areas and an urban transport system will be activated that will allow residents to reach points in which they will be able to access shared bicycles, scooters and cars or regional transport routes that will take them to neighboring cities. The plans for The Point even include the fact that, over time, this backbone urban transport can work with autonomous vehicles.

The few roads reserved for the circulation of cars will be equipped, of course, with bike lanes and wide sidewalks for pedestrians. Another of the ideas of the promoters of the project is to develop a “Mobility as a Service” app that allows residents to know at a glance the costs and times of each alternative of displacement. They will also be able to walk freely through a wide network of open spaces, parks and accessible plots.

The goal would have been marked after listening to the residents of Utah. “Thousands of residents have expressed their vision for the future and among those priorities was a future-focused transportation system that minimizes car dependency and impacts on air quality,” explains Alan Matheson, executive director of Point of the Mountain State Land Authority, the government agency that is overseeing the project, to Streets Blog.

Matheson acknowledges that another of The Point’s most ambitious goals, one that transcends Utah, neighboring towns or even the United States, is become a “model”, a point —never better said— in which to show the efficiency of certain mobility approaches and their effect on air quality, costs, infrastructures or even the health of its residents.

To check its effects, however, we will have to wait. Streets Blog points out that community building will probably not start until the end of 2024. Just a few weeks ago, at the end of December, The Point the Mountain State Land Authority anunciaba in fact, he was in the process of searching for partners to develop his ambitious project.

The Point it is not the only initiative on US soil. on the hunt for new mobility models and a philosophy that is more respectful of the environment. Culdesac Tempe is being plotted in Arizona, which is spread over almost seven hectares located just outside of Phoenix.

Culdesac Tempe bills itself as the first “zero driving” community spun from scratch in the US Its residents, outright, will be contractually barred park a vehicle within a set radius from the neighborhood. The area will have a light rail station, parking area for shared cars or a shared vehicle collection point.

Images | The Point