Federico Parolotto meets the needs of pedestrians

Federico Parolotto spoke at the Schusev State Museum of Architecture on March 6. In the large consortium of designers of Zaryadye Park, he is responsible for the transport part of the project. During the lecture Federico explained what is transport “redesign,” and how the re-establishment of two-way traffic around the Kremlin will return the Moskvoretskaya Embankment to pedestrians.

Space for people

Federico Parolotto is an engineer, a specialist in mobility in highly urbanized areas, and a senior partner of the Milan based Mobility in Chain bureau, which works with the world’s largest architectural firms, such as OMA and UN Studio. However, the tasks which he has set himself, sound quite unusual for a “transporter”: Parolotto says that he is primarily engaged in the development of public spaces, and not roads. It certainly does not mean that the traditional transport problem — to get from point A to point B in the shortest time — ceased to exist. But on the whole the perceptions of transportation — at least in Europe — indeed, are drastically changing. It started from around the 2000s, when the first time since the 1960s the growth curve of automobile users saw a decline.

The realization that highly urbanized areas that for decades expanded space for cars, practically leaving no space for people, has given rise to an urgent need of experts that redesign urban transportation arteries.

Thus started the reverse process: that which in the 1960s-1980s was redesigned in favor of cars has begun to win in favor of pedestrian space. “In this day and age, the streets and squares of the city which can not be crossed without descending underground — this is not normal,” — emphasized Federico.

And yours and ours

It is important to note that transport redesign according to Parolotto does not involve any new construction: his task — with minimal means to literally repackage the space so that there emerges a space not only for cars, but also pedestrians. By reducing the number of lanes and freeing them up, for example, for public transport, the city does not reduce capacity, the expert noted. It can even grow because it’s not in the number of lanes but in their constant width and proper organization of traffic lights, using, for example, the principle of an inverted “bottleneck” to release from the “bottle” the biggest flow of cars.

To see how it all works, Federico Parolotto suggested to look at the example of the Piazzale Loreto Square in Milan (Parolotto is a member of the advisory council for the development of the transport system in the new Master Plan of Milan).

A loaded transport junction, that did not leave any hope for pedestrians to cross the square was transformed into a new public space. In the heart of the city and without detriment to vehicular traffic!

Two-sided outlook

For Moscow, the experience of Milan is also interesting because both cities are similar in their radial-ring structure. Fighting chaotic parking in the center of Moscow is moving exactly in the right direction, reckons Parolotto. And at the same time, the introduction of one-way streets is not the most reliable strategy. “Multi-lane avenues, next to such streets — this is nonsense!”

In the project for Zaryadye Park that Parolotto is developing within the consortium of competition winners, he suggests to return two-way traffic around the Kremlin. And to turn the multi-lane “runway” coming to a standstill at a few “bottlenecks” into two lanes in each direction plus two lanes for public transport. The expert recalls that just such a principle existed here before. Now a huge stream of cars driving down, for example, from Bolshoi Kamenny Bridge, comes to a stop by Manezh, because there are only four lanes here.

According to Parolotto, to have a multi-lane “airfield” on the bridge is unfavorable as it is impractical to not leave lanes for public transport, which physically takes up less space on the road than private transport, and carries almost 10 times more people.

Federico is certain that the return of two-way traffic around the Kremlin will allow some transport to be withdrawn to other areas. That, in turn, would be a step towards the return of the Moskvoretskaya Embankment to pedestrians, which, we remind, is going to be connected to the park with a soaring bridge and will provide a promenade.

Ideally, the embankment should become a green boulevard that could close off the currently disconnected Boulevard Ring loop. Thus, together with pedestrian Varvarka St. and the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge, Zaryadye may subsequently become part of the “new green belt” which stretches from the Muzeon park through Gorky Park to the city center.

Parolotto’s proposed transport redesign in the heart of Moscow, where so far the only thing said is that the change in the driving direction around the Kremlin, will look not so revolutionary in comparison with the recent experience in Paris: here a busy highway along the Seine River was simply closed to motorists, making it into a linear park. The end of the story is a happy one — a transportation collapse did not occur.