Assessing Urban Accessibility in Monterrey, Mexico: A Transferable Approach to Evaluate Access to Main Destinations at the Metropolitan and Local Levels

Abstract

Cities demand urgent transformations in order to become more affordable, livable, sustainable, walkable and comfortable spaces. Hence, important changes have to be made in the way cities are understood, diagnosed and planned. The current paper puts urban accessibility into the centre of the public policy and planning agenda, as a transferable approach to transform cities into better living environments. To do so, a practical example of the City of Monterrey, Mexico, is presented at two planning scales: the metropolitan and local level. Both scales of analysis measure accessibility to main destinations using walking and cycling as the main transport modes. The results demonstrate that the levels of accessibility at the metropolitan level are divergent, depending on the desired destination, as well as on the planning processes (both formal and informal) from different areas of the city. At the local level, the Distrito Tec Area is diagnosed in terms of accessibility to assess to what extent it can be considered a part of a 15 minutes city. The results show that Distrito Tec lacks the desired parameters of accessibility to all destinations for being a 15 minutes city. Nevertheless, there is a considerable increase in accessibility levels when cycling is used as the main travelling mode. The current research project serves as an initial approach to understand the accessibility challenges of the city at different planning levels, by proving useful and disaggregated data. Finally, it concludes providing general recommendations to be considered in planning processes aimed to improve accessibility and sustainability.