BY ELENA COLLI
As a passionate urban cyclist, disguised as an academic working on sustainable mobility, there are few things that caught my attention during these dramatic, absurd, but utterly thoughtful quarantine days. At this moment the current object of my study – human movements – is on pause. Movements are dramatically reduced. Cancelled. Banned. Prohibited.
We are experiencing a stop that would have been unimaginable in normal circumstances. Something that we would have called “impossible” to realize until a few weeks ago. It’s more than 70 years that Europeans do not experience similar limitations to movement for precaution or imposition. And this is forcing us to live a very prolonged and spread “Traffic-ban day” – except the fact we cannot experience the positive consequences of re-appropriation of streets and public space, if not once a week in those few meters to go to the supermarket (even if cycling those few meters is so glorious right now, with the crosses and streets empty, and without the fear to die in a car accident every now and then).
So what I have noticed?
FUTURE AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE 