Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, communities living in cities need cleaner air to breathe and outdoor public space to be social yet physically distanced.

Recognition of these issues has led public health experts, architects and urban planners to discuss how to design cities to respond to the pandemic.

he roll out of vaccines provides hope for a partial restoration of normality in cities. However, the impact of COVID-19 could last much longer. In particular, the pandemic has shown how damaging congestion, pollution and lack of green space can be – including how these factors have contributed to the severity of suffering for city dwellers. We have an opportunity to change city living for the better.

COVID-19 has triggered a crisis for public transport, as lockdowns caused its use to plummet by 70-90% worldwide. Even as lockdowns ease, buses and trains can only carry 15% of the usual number of people due to social distancing requirements – taking the “mass” out of mass transit for the foreseeable future.

The 18th Annual Transport Practitioners' Meeting goes online!

A pause has been forced on urban life. Quiet roads, empty skies, deserted high streets and parks, closed cinemas, cafés and museums – a break in the spending and work frenzy so familiar to us all. The reality of lockdown is making ghost towns of the places we once knew. Everything we know about our urban world has come to a shuddering halt. For now.

Analysis from the UK Department for Transport compares the risk of being injured when you are cycling, driving or walking. Motorcyclists have an especially high risk of death, followed by pedestrians and cyclists. Those in vans, buses or lorries are safest. But this is only half the story. Our research found that while motorcyclists themselves have a high risk of being killed, motorbikes also pose a startlingly high risk to others. Per kilometre, motorcycling kills twice as many other people as car driving.

Creating safe and secure urban spaces is a core concern for city managers, urban planners and policy workers. Safety is a slippery concept to pin down, not least because it is a subjective experience. It incorporates our perceptions of places and memories, but also norms in society about who is expected to use spaces in the city, and who is considered to be out of place.

Large ungainly versions of the childhood microscooter have started to populate cities around the world. These electric scooters can be seen dotting streets, parks, pavements all over. Many people own them individually, and hire schemes in some cities mean that they are increasingly available for more general use too.

The way people get around is starting to change, and as a professor of transport strategy I do rather wonder if the modes of transport we use today will still be around by the turn of the next century.