The passage-paysage project focuses on the transformative potential of main roads to become landscape infrastructures that enable and foster a radical shift towards a sustainable mobility paradigm while increasing urban qualities in the areas they cross.
In the context of the ecological transition, an important part of the necessary decrease in overall greenhouse emissions can be reached by reducing CO2 generated by individual motorised transport. This reduction would also generate positive impacts on society and its environment. Our hypothesis is that a large amount of local trips (less than 10 km) can reasonably be replaced by active mobilities such as walking and (e-)biking providing the public domain is fairly shared
between active mobilities (including scooters, skateboards, and the like), public transport and cars. Our proposal consists in rethinking main road design as landscape multimodal infrastructures supporting biodiversity and active mobilities while enhancing the quality of the urban environment.
Our analysis and proposal use the case of the area of Geneva (Switzerland and neighbouring France). In particular, we focus aon three main road axes that cross the Canton of Geneva and link the center city to its Hinterland, through former villages and indutrial infrastructures. These axes are the cantonal roads along the route de St-Julien, route de Meyrin and route du Pont-Butin. They cross diverse territorial layers and are representative of a common type of road in Switzerland, the route cantonale en traversée de localité.
The passage-paysage actualizes within the framework of landscape infrastructure and with a focus on active and low-carbon mobilities the long tradition of the parkways and road design which through the 20th century tried to harmonise the landscape with the driver’s experience. This concept allows us to theoretically and practically challenge the modern paradigm of urban and infrastructural planning and pushes toward inclusive and adaptive design strategies oriented towards the development of healthier and more biodiverse cities.
In order to assess the degree to which current infrastructures foster or hinder active mobilities, we build on existing literature and manuals on active mobility infrastructures to develop a multicriteria evaluation grid. This grid allows to evaluate both existing and projected cyclist or pedestrian infrastructure through eight pre-defined criteria that assess its adequacy for active mobilities and needed readjustments : 1) efffectiveness, 2) continuity, 3) security, 4) comfort, 5) perceptions, 6) potential modal shift and ecological footprint, 7) valorisation of the natural and urban landscape and 8) socioeconomical inclusion. These relate to three categories: i) conception of the mobility network (1-2), ii) experience (3-4-5) and iii) valorisation of the territorial context (6-7-8). The application of the evaluation grid in the three axes shows that the current infrastructures are generally inadequate to foster the necessary strong modal shift from car to active mobilities.
In parallel and taking into account the diagnosis results, a passage-paysage landscape infrastructure is defined for the three roads at a territorial scale. Then, nine key sites where the diagnosis had shown an intervention would be most needed are identified as case studies to develop the passage-paysage at an urban scale. This work is collected as a catalogue in which previous and transformed states of each of the nine sites are presented. Finally, the evaluation grid is re-applied to the nine propositions, resulting in a strong improvement of all scores. Only the safety and comfort for pedestrians, which were satisfactorily before the interventions, remain stable.
The conception of a project on such a large and heterogeneous territory required an innovative crossing of survey methods, from multimodal sitevisits (by car, e-bike, bicycle – or on foot and using public transports) to advanced geomapping techniques, and experimental planning and drawing methods to enable a transcalar and transdisciplinary situated approach. By doing this, each local situation is harmonised in both an urban and territorial territorial scale with the pre-existing conditions (eg. green networks, urban realms and cultural landscapes). Allowing, furthermore, to draw a coherent and perceptually rich experience for its different users all throughout the passage-paysage and its surrounding environments.
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This project was funded by the CROSS program in 2020. It was a collaboration between the laboratory ALICE from EPFL and OUVEMA from Unil.