Jeff Olson is an American urban architect who dedicated his career to alternative  transportation, and became a founder of the largest bike share system in North America, New York City’s CitiBike. He is a co-founder of re:Charge-e and author of The 3rd Mode: Towards a Green Society. His major projects include the Grand Canyon Greenway, the Empire State Trail, the White House Millennium Trails Program, the Dubai Bicycle/Pedestrian Master Plan, and the NW Arkansas Razorback Greenway.

ONE PLANET PODCAST · BUSINESS & SOCIETY

How do you think the cities of the future are going to look in terms of transport and energy, and how do your projects work alongside other adaptation efforts for cities of the future?

JEFF OLSON

It's a big question and one the world has to face as one of its greatest challenges. This is the first time in human history that the world's population has been more than 50 percent urban, and that's continuing to progress probably towards 60 percent in the near term. The work that I and my partners and collaborators have done (I never want to say that I've created any of the things I've done as a team effort in every respect) is to make it possible for more people to move more easily and sustainably in cities.

And we know that that's not the mainstream effort that's happening right now from so many major efforts that are going on, the tremendous attempts at electrification, but mostly oriented toward electric cars. And the vast majority of the world's population will not be able to own a car, will not have a place to plug one in. We don't have enough electricity in the grid to do that. So the challenge is how do we take those efforts and scale them in an appropriate way that matches up with the needs of the world's population.

The key number for people to remember is one to 150 for the cost and energy that it takes to charge a single electric car, our system could charge 150 bikes or scooters in public space that then people have access to. So the question from an equity standpoint, from really achieving our climate goals standpoint is, do you invest in getting one person mobile and maintaining maybe the current lifestyle that goes along with those cars? Or do we make some changes and invest in 150 to 200 people being mobile with the same energy? Clearly, we think the answer is more people moving more often, more sustainably. And we have to make that shift or we're never going to hit the 2030 goals. They are probably not even in reach, you heard the Secretary-General say just last week. And even 2050 seems a long way to go if we're still investing in technologies that only essentially help the 1 percent that already have the resources. It's the larger population that we really need to reach.