The plan to make Milan even more pedestrian-friendly Here’s everything you need to know about “Möves”

Recently, the Municipality of Milan presented the urban mobility project Möves, a plan outlining goals, strategies, and concrete actions to promote walking and cycling in the city. The initiative, as stated on the Municipality of Milan’s website, aims to make the Lombard capital more accessible and safer for people who do not travel by car.

Möves – the term derives from a Milanese dialect expression used to say «move», in the sense of «hurry up» or «get a move on» – can be linked, at least in part, to the logic of so-called "tactical urbanism", that is, a set of practices positioned between urban planning and civic activism. In its original formulation, this approach is conceived as a process that should arise directly from citizens, consisting of interventions promoted even - and especially - in the absence of an institutional mandate. However, more recent developments of this practice show that the most effective urban activism projects have not evolved in opposition to local administrations, but through forms of collaboration.

The importance of urban development for large cities

The recent initiative by the Municipality of Milan is not an entirely new type of urban planning intervention in Europe. In Paris, for example, the local administration has long launched the project Paris Plages, which every summer reconfigures urban spaces for recreational use. Similarly, with the project Superblocks Barcelona, urban mobility in the Catalan city has been profoundly reorganized, limiting private traffic within specific areas thanks to an institutional initiative.

In this context, many urban planners believe that the development of cities should not always and only be driven by citizens and associations, as often happens; instead, public administrations should take on an active role by deploying expertise, resources, and coordination capacity, with the aim of implementing ambitious projects. Not all urban centers, however, prove capable of undertaking this path. In many large cities, both in Europe and the United States, policies for sustainable urban development are applied only partially, or even postponed, leaving structural issues such as traffic congestion and road safety unresolved, among other things - conditions that then push groups of activists to intervene independently.

How Milan should change with Möves

Regarding cycling mobility, Möves предусматривает the expansion of routes dedicated to bicycles: the goal is to ensure continuous, safe, uninterrupted, and more clearly identifiable paths, making cycling a real alternative for daily travel in Milan. To this end, the plan includes the activation of new dedicated services, such as bike stations at strategic points in the city, the organization of events focused on cycling tourism, and the launch of projects aimed at promoting cycle logistics – that is, the use of vehicles such as cargo bikes for transporting and delivering goods, especially in the last mile, with the aim of reducing traffic, noise, and pollution.

On the pedestrian mobility front, instead, the Municipality of Milan intends to improve safety, accessibility, and the quality of dedicated urban spaces. Key interventions include the widening of many sidewalks and the redevelopment of pedestrian pathways, especially in areas near schools and parks. The plan also предусматривает the creation of new fully pedestrian squares through the already launched “Open Squares” program.

With Möves, there are also plans to extend areas where the speed limit for cars is 30 km/h, introduce new measures for traffic calming, and progressively remove many architectural barriers present in the city – particularly near public transport stops. Finally, this is complemented by informational and educational campaigns targeting schools, families, and local communities.