"When people are faced with increasingly congested urban traffic, their first reaction is often to' widen' the road, but they are wrong." Yu Jianhua, an official of the Best Practices and Policies Department of UN-HABITAT, said: "The research on the traffic situation in major cities in the world shows that the wider the road, the more congested the traffic will be. Overpasses and circuitous intersections widely used in China have not solved the traffic congestion problem, but' aggravated' the problem. People must understand that cities belong to pedestrians, not cars. "
Yu Jianhua believes that urban transportation should be three-dimensional and personalized, and each mode of transportation should have its own space. "In the United States, we are doing the opposite of China-widening sidewalks and shrinking expressway. On the premise of improving the city's large-scale public transportation system, we will build a' walking' city. " He said. Sam casella, former president of the American Association of Planners, said: "China should give more consideration to small blocks, sidewalks and public squares in urban planning to provide convenient conditions for walking and cycling." In his view, the car began to "abdicate" after being the "emperor" in the United States for 50 years. "China can learn from our lessons and strike a balance between various modes of transportation to avoid excessive investment in highway construction."
According to experts, the construction of expressway is not only related to urban traffic, but also the embodiment of "social equity". "As the name implies, the' public' road is not a' private' road. If a city allows 10% car owners to occupy 70% of the roads, it will inevitably hinder social equality, and we should' return the road to the people'. " Yu Jianhua said. Lv Bin, a professor at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in Peking University, believes that urban road construction is also closely related to community planning. "The oversize that some China cities are obsessed with is actually an outdated view. China should establish a compact city with three-dimensional spatial form and comprehensive land utilization, so as to make business, life, culture and residential facilities compact and convenient, and build an urban space with pedestrians as the center and human behavior scale. "
Sam put forward seven suggestions for China's urban transportation at the Habitat Festival: reducing urban expansion and reducing the occupation of green space and open areas ... but he advocated "increasing"-"walking more".