Towards Vibrant City Centres for People; Promoting Push and Pull Transportation Policies in the Historical Peninsula-Istanbul

Abstract

Today, more than 50% of the world's population lives in the cities.This number is estimated to increase by 70% in 2050.Simultaneously, cars are expected to rise by 2 billion worldwide in 2020 (Claudia Adriazola, S.(2013).More urbanites, more cars: the challenge of urban road safety and health—TheCityFix.Retrieved December 13, 2018, from http://thecityfix.com/blog/urbanization-more-cars-challenge-urban-road-safety-urban-health-brookings/ ).Istanbul, like many megacities, suffers both unexpected urbanisation and a significant increase in the number of private cars.Therefore, this study highlighted urgent actions and policies to convert Historical Peninsula from “Car-Oriented Development” into a “People-Oriented” one.This paper suggests a balance between Push and Pull Transportation Policies (PPT) and public spaces in the Historical Peninsula to encourage people to use other transport modes and enhance the entire quality of life.Hence, this study investigates the concepts and approaches to reducing car dependency.Firstly, this research attempts to identify the costs of car-dependency and related concepts and approaches to reduce cars in the city centres.Secondly, the PPT policies are classified into four critical strategies: alternative car corridors, upgrading public transport, upgrading active transportation, and upgrading public spaces.Each of these categories examined the best practices before and after an intervention and compared them.Thirdly, the Historical Peninsula analysed regarding the Push and Pull Transportation Policies.Then, recommendations are set up following the problems, potentials and observation of the Historical Peninsula and the analysed successful practices. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.