Amid improvements in public transit infrastructure, technology developments and changing urban demographics, cities across the continent are making efforts to curb car dependency. Take Columbus, Ohio, for example, where parking headaches had become so chronic that office vacancies rose, despite continuing demand for sophisticated redevelopment. Downtown property owners, desperate for change, seized matters into their own hands to trial what’s been hailed as the largest of its kind transit subsidy program in the U.S.: the business association is offering a free bus pass to the more than 40,000 people who work in the area.

Meanwhile, Mexico City, the biggest city in North America, has recently made waves for its subtle, but far-reaching move to cut minimum parking space requirements. These laws, which are prevalent across the continent, had required housing developers to build a certain number of parking spaces depending on how many people lived there. Now, buildings can be designed according to the amount of parking that makes sense for the neighborhood, which in transit-heavy areas, may mean close to none.

What’s happening in Columbus and Mexico City is part of a larger story. While frustration with congestion and pollution is inspiring a turn away from long-standing dependencies on cars, powerful new possibilities are emerging in the form of more supported transit, car-sharing and autonomous vehicles that together are poised to transform everything about the way we build cities and move in and around them.

Read the full article about North American cities trying to reduce car dependency at JLL.