PASSAGE-PAYSAGE
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 run through.
In the context of the ecological transition, a significant 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 the 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 redesigning main roads as multimodal landscape infrastructures that support biodiversity and active mobilities while enhancing the quality of the urban environment.
Our analysis and proposal are based on the area surrounding Geneva (Switzerland and neighbouring France). In particular, we focus on three main road axes that run through the Canton of Geneva and link the city‘s center to its countryside, through former villages and industrial infrastructures. These axes are the cantonal roads along 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 [cantonal road crossing a village].
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 leisurely walks and of road design that, through the 20th century, attempted to create a harmony between the landscape and the driver’s experience.This concept enables us to theoretically and practically challenge the modern paradigm of urban and infrastructural planning, pushing us toward inclusive and adaptive design strategies that promote 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 the existing literature and manuals on active mobility infrastructures to develop a multicriteria evaluation grid. This grid allows us to evaluate both existing and projected cyclist or pedestrian infrastructure through eight predefined criteria that assess its adequacy for active mobilities and the adjustments needed: 1) effectiveness, 2) continuity, 3) safety, 4) comfort, 5) perceptions, 6) potential modal shift and ecological footprint, 7) promotion 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) promotion 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 automobiles 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 shows 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 catalog in which the initial and transformed states of each of the nine sites are presented. Finally, the evaluation grid is re-applied to the nine proposals, 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 combination of survey methods, from multimodal on-site visits (by car, e-bike, bicycle, or on foot and using public transports) to advanced geomapping techniques, using 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 scale with the pre-existing conditions (eg. green networks, urban realms and cultural landscapes). This allows, furthermore, to draw a coherent and perceptually rich experience for its various users all throughout the passage-paysage and its surrounding environments.
CREDITS
EPFL ALICE:
Prof. Dieter Dietz, Lucia Jalon Oyarzun, Aurèle Pulfer, Ruben Valdez
Alexandre Barrère, Aurélie Dupuis, Julien Heil, Julien Lafontaine, Zoé Lefevre, Antonin Mack, Malcolm Onifadé, Justine Prin, Myriam Treiber, Noémie Zurbriggen
UNIL OUVEMA:
Prof. Patrick Rérat, José Ibarra
Dimitri Marincek, Aurélie Schmassmann
ATLAS POLIPHILO:
Alexandre Barrère, Myriam Treiber, Alice Duvert
Raphaël Saul Angeles, Morgane Angelozzi, Timothée D‘Amico, Luana Ferrari, Rafael Ferreira Da Silva, Antoine Yassine André Filali-Ansary, Gimmi Giacuzzi, Luca Hoser, Yannick André Neypatraiky, Hugo Nick, Grégoire Hugo Pau- vert, Daniel Louis Pilsworth, Justine Anne Françoise Rognon, Nicola Antonio Santacroce, Meryl Lucie Schopfer, Mélanie Estelle Schroff, Emma Simonin, Manon Danièle Thévenaz, Timon Voide
Photography: ALICE EPFL
Julien Heil, José Ibarra, Malcolm Onifadé, Aurèle Pulfer
Maps and graphics: ALICE EPFL
Data source: SITG 2020
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Canton de Genève: Vassilis Venizelos, Ariane Widmer, Caroline Barbisch, Benjamin Villard, Giovanna Ronconi, Fabien Pignoly
Ville de Genève: Barbara Pillonel
ATE Genève: Alice Genoud
Provélo Genève: Violeta Djambazova
Mobilité Piétonne: Jenny Leuba
EPFL Collège des humanités (CDH)
Collaborative Research on Science and Society (CROSS)
CROSS 2020: MOBILITÉ
https://www.epfl.ch/schools/cdh/fr/recherche/cross/appel-a-contribution-cross-2020/
From ‘route cantonale‘ to ‘passage-paysage’: threading zero impact mobilities in Swiss metropolitan areas through landscape infrastructure.