Article content

Thinking of Puerto Rico’s largest city doesn’t exactly evoke images of urban sprawl and congested highways (at least, not on the scale that Toronto residents get to enjoy

every day).

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or San Juan to kick out cars, get billion-dollar makeover as pedestrian city Back to video

Still, it might be entirely fitting for a city that is among the oldest in the Americas

to be among the first to

within city limits.

San Juan Mayor Jorge Santini released his Walkable City plan

last month, which he hopes will

needed on the city’s

Isleta

– an island containing Old San Juan that has been fraught with urban planning snafus that have left nearly

over the past 50 years.

The plan calls for 16 million square feet of new buildings that will be designed to allow for increased beach access. Despite the plan to abolish car traffic, the plan also calls for the construction of several new roads and intersections. Though these will be based on pedestrian travel patterns, which likely means building a network of narrower, less intrusive lane ways snaking throughout the city.