Enhancing Urban Mobility: Analysis of the 15-Minute City for an Accessible and Eco-Friendly Urban Environment in Utrecht

Faced with demographic growth and growing concerns about environmental sustainability, the concept of the ‘15-minute city' advocated by Carlos Moreno is emerging as an original approach that redirects urban planning by promoting easy access to essential services through the use of active travel modes. The aim of this article is to analyse the duality of accessibility and quality of cycling in the Dutch city of Utrecht and to assess an overall score for each district of the municipality. To do this, the method chosen is to use intra-city origin–destination matrices created based on the cycling network from dwellings to services. The results show that districts on the outskirts often have less access to basic services than districts in the city centre. However, they benefit from better air quality, making cycling a more pleasant experience. To help public policy-makers improve both accessibility and journey quality, a decision-support grid for Utrecht has been drawn up to provide solutions to existing transportation bottlenecks. In conclusion, this article is a new 15-minute-city-inspired approach to accessibility studies that needs to be extended to other cities in order to analyse its characteristics on a more general basis.