European cities to revamp transportation after pandemic reopening

New urban transportation landscapes will be the order of the day in some major European cities after reopening following COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

In Milan, the city core will be partly remodeled to turn over 22 miles of road space previously used by cars to bikes and pedestrians. Cars in the city center will be required to adhere to a new, reduced 30 kilometers per hour speed limit. The goal is to make traffic more fluid and give pedestrians more space to spread out safely.

Public transit in Milan will have a new look. The floors of metro cars and buses will be marked out with circles so that passengers will maintain appropriate distance from each other. Station entrances may be temporarily closed if there is too much congestion.

Brussels’ entire city core will be a priority zone for cyclists and pedestrians. Paris, will expand the width of existing bicycle lanes, and the region is fast-tracking a temporary version of its planned new network of nine long-distance cycleways.

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.