Tag: urban transport

The European Commission's long-awaited Urban Mobility Action Plan was adopted yesterday (30 September) in a move designed to help local and national authorities make urban travel "easier, greener and better organised".

Home to 80% of EU citizens and 70% of greenhouse gas emissions, urban areas play a key role in fighting climate change; but cities' access to funding for green policies is proving a major stumbling block.

While the European Commission continues to squabble over its draft urban mobility proposal, the European Parliament yesterday (21 January) presented a draft action plan on the issue, setting out measures to make public transport more attractive.

The climate change imperative has put the spotlight on Europe's cities, which are home to 80% of Europeans and consume a disproportionate share of natural resources relative to their surface area. 

Meeting in La Rochelle on 1-2 September for an informal session, EU transport ministers showed some reserve towards Commission proposals to charge truck drivers for the costs they impose in terms of congestion, noise and air pollution.

The European Parliament will call on the Commission and EU governments to set up new financing mechanisms to tackle the growing congestion and pollution problems plaguing our cities, Austrian MEP Reinhard Rack, rapporteur on the Commission’s Green Paper on urban mobility told EurActiv.

Public transport operators are teaming up with the United Nations in a campaign to encourage people to leave their cars at home and take the bus, metro, train or tram instead.

As part of its drive to promote more sustainable urban transport, the Commission has revived a proposal requiring government authorities to ensure that their public transport fleets and other public-utility vehicles, such as garbage lorries or delivery vans, are clean and energy efficient. 

Presenting a new Green Paper on Urban Transport, Commissioner Jacques Barrot outlined a large range of potential solutions and areas where the EU could take action in order to tackle the growing congestion, pollution and safety problems in Europe's cities.

As the Commission prepares to present proposals for a European strategy on urban transport, Klaus Bondam, chairman of Eurocities' Mobility Forum and vice-mayor of Copenhagen, stresses the need for a "push from above" that would allow EU cities to finance more sustainable transport infrastructure and implement greener urban policies such as congestion charges.

MEP Gyula Hegyi, who has drafted a Parliament Report on the EU urban environment strategy, says in an interview with EurActiv that improving mobility should be cities' number-one priority and that the EU must do more to encourage this. 

The transport commissioner may propose a European legal framework that would give cities the possibility of introducing congestion charging schemes similar to London's – a move previously forbidden in some member states.

As the Commission opens the first stages of its public consultation on urban transport, public-transport workers and operators are calling for more than a simple benchmarking exercise.

In an interview with EurActiv.com, European Transport Safety Council Executive Director Jörg Beckmann urges more political leadership to enforce existing road-safety measures, especially across borders, and to introduce "crucial" new technologies, in order to reduce the number of accidents on European roads.

A new Commission strategy to make urban areas greener focuses on better implementation of existing EU environmental policies but proposes little in terms of new initiatives.

Green cities were the focus of the United Nation's Environment Day 2005 in San Francisco. An environment atlas with satellite pictures of sprawling cities was shown to the 50 mayors attending the event.

On 9 October, the CIVITAS Forum was launched officially in Brussels. It constitutes a platform for the exchange of ideas and experiences among cities participating in the Commission's CIVITAS Initiative.