The business districts of many metropolises worldwide share the same characteristics: monotonous office building façades, uninviting public spaces, congested traffic arteries, and high levels of pollution. Employees, residents and visitors are burdened by the decreasing quality of the environment in which they are working and living. Traffic congestion steels numerous hours of every commuter’s life.
The City of Johannesburg, the economic hub of southern Africa, ran a daring experiment that offered an alternative scenario for an urban future: as part of the EcoMobility World Festival, a hundred thousand commuters were requested to abandon their cars and convert to ecomobility for four weeks. Many Joburgers took up the challenge and used the improved bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, the additional public transport services and innovative urban vehicles in and around the Sandton business district.
