Browsing by Author "Mora Vega, Rodrigo"

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    Pandemic-related streets transformations: accelerating sustainable mobility transitions in Latin America
    (2021) Vecchio, Giovanni; Tiznado Aitken, Ignacio Andrés; Mora Vega, Rodrigo; CEDEUS (Chile)
    The COVID-19 pandemic and the need for physical distancing in public spaces have significant effects on sustainable mobility initiatives. Many cities around the world promoted temporary transformations of streets, redistributing road space to create emergency cycleways and expand sidewalks to allow the movement of people while granting a certain physical distance between people. While Europe and, to a lesser extent, North America have initially led these initiatives, Latin America has soon followed suit, without much of their technical experience, governance, resources and sometimes public acceptance for sustainable mobility. The paper examines if and how the major disruptive event posed by the COVID-19 has reconfigured sustainable mobility initiatives in Latin American cities. Interviewing key decision-makers, the paper reviews five initiatives across the region to examine the typology of interventions promoted and the spaces involved, the governance schemes that allowed them and the public acceptance towards such measures. The analysis demonstrates that the COVID-19 pandemic has fostered a faster adoption of sustainable mobility measures such as emergency cycleways, street pedestrianisations and other traffic calming initiatives, facilitating the creation of new coalitions and the public acceptance of these interventions thanks to the sense of urgency generated by the pandemic.
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    Understanding cyclists’ conflicts in the streets of a Latin American metropolis
    (2024) Mora Vega, Rodrigo; Waintrub Santibáñez, Natan; Figueroa Martínez, Cristhian; Horta, Amarilis; CEDEUS (Chile)
    Promoted by most governments as a sustainable form of transportation, cycling is surging worldwide. Despite the positive impacts of cycling, conflicts between cyclists and other street users such as pedestrians, cars and buses have increased, especially in countries lacking proper cycling infrastructure. This paper aims to understand a series of conflicts experienced by cyclists in Santiago de Chile, where cycling has expanded rapidly in the last fifteen years. To do so, three focus groups were held with cyclists having different levels of experience. The participants were asked to describe the main conflicts with other modes of transport and road users, as well as the coping strategies employed to deal with these conflicts. An inductive analysis ended with four categories related to cyclists’ conflicts in the streets and two related to strategies and lessons dealing with motorised vehicle drivers and other cyclists. The analysis indicates that the unequal distribution of road space negatively influences cyclists’ experiences, who perceive themselves as being threatened constantly by overtaking cars in close proximity, as well as by different forms of verbal and sometimes physical aggression. It indicates that cyclists develop strategies to mitigate conflicts, ranging from making themselves visible at all times, to making use of bodily gestures. However, conflicts can still escalate. The results suggest that, in auto-centric urban contexts, cycling is a challenging chore that happens surrounded by the sensation of having fragile entitlements.