Since 2002 European Mobility Week has been giving people the chance to explore the role of city streets and experiment with practical solutions to tackle urban challenges, such as air pollution. CITyFiED cities proved they are not just at the forefront of the energy transition and multiple members were active 16-22 September 2017.
In Spain, lighthouse Laguna de Duero, Valladolid, Medina del Campo and Segovia all created a week of celebratory activities, introduced permanent measures and featured a central ‘Car Free Day’. Ludwigshafen’s sister city of city cluster member and November 2017 study tour, Mannheim, celebrated 200 years of the bicycle at the International Cycling Conference and Izmir held a Sustainable Transport Workshop alongside numerous festivities and permanent measures.
Board of Representatives city, Brussels has long supported European Mobility Week and investing in a number of new bus, tram and pedestrianisation initiatives in recent years. Car Free Day in the Belgian capital has been such a success, that there is strong demand to make it a regular occurrence. Finally, CITyFiED demonstration city Lund used events as a springboard for an extensive set of permanent measures. These included a new traffic calming and control scheme, new and improved bicycle facilities and new levels of accessible and tactile pavements putting people with disabilities top of mind.
These campaigns, plus the many more run in 2270 towns and cities in 48 countries in Europe and beyond provide a perfect opportunity to present sustainable alternatives to local residents. It is a valuable opportunity to explain the challenges cities and towns are facing to drive behavioural change in our daily lives. A cause CITyFiED can certainly relate to. Cities attending the November 2017 study tour will no doubt have plenty of mobility as well as energy issues to discuss.
3 October 2017