Carme Miralles-Guasch

Este artículo analiza la distribución espacial de los entornos de proximidad en Barcelona, Valencia, Palma de Mallorca y Granada desde la perspectiva de la ciudad de 15 minutos. La ciudad de 15 minutos es un concepto de planificación urbana que postula poder alcanzar las necesidades diarias en 15 minutos a pie o en bicicleta (Moreno et al., 2021). La investigación aborda la falta de análisis empírico en España sobre este concepto. Se emplea la estimación de tiempos mínimos de acceso a pie a 25 destinos cotidianos en una malla ortogonal de 100x100 metros. Los resultados indican que las zonas altamente accesibles se asemejan más a una ciudad de 5 minutos, especialmente para servicios educativos. La baja accesibilidad en algunas áreas comporta déficits significativos en acceso a destinos básicos, generando dependencia del automóvil y segregación social. Además, los servicios públicos se distribuyen más uniformemente que los privados. Estos hallazgos contribuyen a entender las dinámicas urbanas específicas de cada ciudad y proporcionan herramientas para adaptar políticas públicas.

La seguridad es un componente clave de la sustentabilidad social de una ciudad. Este estudio explora cómo se relacionan la percepción de seguridad y la vitalidad urbana en un contexto latinoamericano pospandemia. La aproximación es cualitativa mediante la realización de un fotovoz con la participación de 19 personas residentes y trabajadoras de la comuna de Santiago y la recopilación de 436 imágenes durante febrero y marzo de 2023. Los hallazgos confirman el efecto positivo de las actividades recreativas, culturales, deportivas y artísticas sobre la seguridad, así como la relación sinérgica entre estas actividades, el uso del espacio público, el reconocimiento de personas y la percepción de cuidado colectivo. Las conclusiones advierten de los riesgos que producen la presencia de espacios abandonados, la saturación comercial de las calles y la gentrificación. A la vez se destaca la importancia de la diversidad social, la protección de los derechos humanos y el respeto a la identidad y expresión sexogenérica, como claves para la comprensión de la percepción de la seguridad y la experiencia urbana.

Since care is an essential part of our individual and collective survival, there is a challenge in exploring how care operates through daily mobility patterns in urban settings. In recent years, an increasing number of scholars have placed care at the heart of their research, examining how care activities are influenced by everyday spaces and practices. Mobility studies, in particular, have begun to address this issue by reporting those trips related to daily care activities, for example, by using “mobility of care” to refer to trips that are usually associated with women and mainly related to home and caring tasks. However, the lack of a theoretical consensus on what care means and the methodological constraints in traditional travel surveys make it difficult to provide a clear depiction of care-related trips. This chapter offers an overview of how care has been accounted for within mobility and transport studies, the main conclusions of the several attempts to assess the mobility of care, and the gaps that are still unsolved on this topic.

Electric scooters (e-scooters) have changed urban mobility by offering a dynamic solution to the critical “first and last mile” problem, connecting individuals from their homes to public transport and their final destinations. Despite their growing popularity, e-scooters navigate through a landscape of shifting legal frameworks, highlighting the urgency for policies that not only harness their potential but also address their inherent challenges. This study aims to shed light on the intermodal practices and demographics of e-scooters users in Barcelona, explores the potential impacts of regulatory changes on established transport habits, and assesses the adaptability of users to changing transportation options. Through a self-reported survey of 311 private e-scooter users, we find a notable prevalence of young men from lower socioeconomic backgrounds engaging in intermodal travel, primarily for employment purposes. To better understand how e-scooter riders integrate the device in their daily mobility strategies, we introduce the Intermodality Ratio (IR). A Generalized Linear Model (GLM) is then used to identify key demographic, socioeconomic, and geographic predictors of the IR, revealing place of residence as the most significant factor influencing intermodal behavior. Finally, we analyze participants’ anticipated behavioral shifts in response to the upcoming ban using a Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR) model, which explores the sociodemographic factors affecting the likelihood of adopting alternative transport strategies. These findings contribute to the limited understanding of e-scooter utilization and intermodal practices, particularly within the context of public transit, offering insights into how transport policies can more effectively accommodate emerging mobility solutions.

Micromobility, which includes bicycle-sharing systems, e-scooters, and shared moped-style scooters, has emerged as a popular alternative to traditional transport modes in urban environments, thus expanding the number of transportation options available to urban travellers. Previous research has primarily relied on trip-based data to explore the multimodal character of micromobility. However, existing evidence has failed to understand the ways in which urban travellers have reshaped their mobility patterns as a consequence of the introduction of micromobility. Using a travel survey (N = 902) set in Barcelona, Spain, cluster techniques are used to group micromobility users according to their frequency of use of three different micromobility modes (bicycle-sharing systems, private e-scooter, and moped-style scooter-sharing services). Then, a multinomial logistic regression was used, in order to explore each cluster’s usage of traditional modes of transport, along with all potential weekly combinations between modes. Results show that most micromobility users rely on a single type of micromobility mode on a weekly basis. The model further indicates that private e-scooter, shared bicycle, and shared moped-style scooter users develop different weekly mobility combination patterns. While personal micromobility options (private e-scooter) are associated with monomodal tendencies, sharing services (bicycle sharing and moped-style scooter sharing) encourage multimodal behaviours. These findings contribute to the limited knowledge concerning the role of some micromobility alternatives in creating more rational and less habit-dependent travel behaviour choices.

El crecimiento urbano de las metrópolis latinoamericanas ha adoptado diferentes patrones espaciales e intensidades; entre ellos, una forma urbana que se da en expansión y crece hacia fuera del núcleo de la ciudad. Para hacer frente a las consecuencias negativas de tal crecimiento, los Estados han establecido políticas destinadas a controlar y orientar el desarrollo urbano expansivo, principalmente a través de la planificación urbana y la regulación del suelo. Este estudio analiza el rol de la planificación y normativa urbana en la expansión de la ciudad de Santiago de Chile entre 1997 y 2013, utilizando para ello mapas de cobertura, la zonificación establecida por el Plan Regulador Metropolitano de Santiago y una revisión de la normativa aplicable. Se demuestra que la ciudad se expande en aquellas zonas declaradas como no urbanas por el Plan, proceso en que el Estado desempeña un rol activo al establecer normas que permiten expandir la ciudad, produciendo contradicciones normativas territoriales.

Micromobility services hold substantial potential in terms of promoting shared and electric-powered mobility modes, however, little is known about their accessibility and what shapes their spatial coverage. These two issues are important to understand how socially equitable these modes can really be and how public policies should manage their implementation in urban areas. Hence, this study examines the determinants of the spatial coverage of four moped-style scooter sharing services (MSS) in Barcelona. The article examines the socio-territorial characteristics of the coverage areas of each MSS, as defined in 2019, together with the minimum area that operators had to provide service in 2020 according to the local regulation. For each MSS, a binomial generalized linear mixed model is employed to predict the odds of each cadastral parcel being covered by the service and analyzed the main spatial determinants associated with it. The results suggest that territorial coverage is defined by centrality, household disposable income, and topography, with low-accessibility areas consistently omitted from services. The conclusions underline the need for the public sector to participate in the design of spatial coverage areas of MSS to guarantee spatial equity and transportation justice and avoid private sector designs that systematically exclude less attractive areas.

It is well established that urban form can encourage or hinder daily walking activity. Consequently, urban form has a direct impact on both spatial accessibility and the ability of achieving daily physical activity recommendations. However, the relationship between urban form and walking patterns may present relevant differences among different population subgroups, for instance in terms of gender. In order to analyse how the relationship between urban form and daily walking time might be modulated by gender, the present study aims to explore walking patterns of men and women living in different neighbourhood types in Barcelona Metropolitan Region (Spain). For this purpose, the study uses data extracted from a smartphone tracking app among a rather specific population group: young adults who commute daily to the same destination. The findings show that compact urban forms promote gender equality. The study especially sheds light on the disadvantaged position of young women living in small towns and suburbs, who walk much less than other women and any men.

Background: Walking is an essential activity for everyone and for older adults in particular, given that it is the most accessible form of physical activity and one of the healthiest transportation modes. Understanding how walkability (the potential of the environment to enable and/or encourage walking) has been objectively measured and analyzed for older adults is critical to create more inclusive, healthy, and sustainable environments and to promote healthy aging. Despite the numerous reviews on physical activity among older adults and its relationship with the built environment, the literature still lacks comparison reviews focusing specifically on objective operationalizations of walkability for older adults vs. the general population. Methods: We conducted a systematic review of 146 empirical studies that measured walkability objectively in relation to walking-related outcomes. We compared studies focused on older adults (n = 24) and the general population (n = 122). Content analysis included the characteristics of the study design, walkability measures, spatial extent, and associations found between walkability and walking-related outcomes. Results: In both groups of publications, the majority of studies were conducted in the US, Canada, and Europe, and largely in high-income countries. They were mostly published in health-related journals and used cross-sectional designs, operationalized walkability by using indexes, employed self-reported measures for walking-related outcomes, and found positive associations between walkability and walking outcomes. However, we observed some differences among studies focusing on older adults. Compared to studies focusing on the general population, a larger proportion of studies on older adults was conducted in the Middle East and Asia, and they used longitudinal designs, mixed methods to measure walking-related outcomes, variables related with land-use characteristics, safety from traffic and crime, and greenery, and a larger proportion found positive, as well as no associations between walkability and walking-related outcomes. Conclusion: Although there is a promising increase in interest in older adults-focused walkability studies in the last decade, there is still a need for more studies focusing on different settings, using wider spatial extents, longitudinal designs, objective or mixed methods to collect outcome data, and specific variables and/or specially created indexes for older adults and for settings.