SUMP Central

The London Borough of Lewisham plans to transform its streets to make them safer and cleaner, and a place that welcomes walking and cycling. The Council’s main motivation is to improve air quality and road safety, as well as to reduce the number of cars and vans that dominate the district’s streets.

The council’s Sustainable Streets Programme aims to plant more trees, install bicycle parking hangars and provide charging options for electric vehicles on its streets. Car parking will be restricted around junctions and a new parking permit scheme for residents and businesses will give priority to local people. Today, about 60% of road space in Lewisham is taken up by car parking, even though half of the borough’s population does not even own a car. Residents will be able to have their say about the proposed changes as the council is to consult them on ideas and measures.

Lewisham plans to introduce the changes using a stepwise approach, starting with roads in two areas, Deptford and Catford/Crofton Park. Here, the council wants to install around 500 bicycle parking spaces, 300 trees and 100 e-charging points.

Councillor Louise Krupski, cabinet member for Environment and Climate Action, said: “We want to reimagine our borough’s roads and streets to create a greener Lewisham, improve road safety and help reduce air pollution. Our Sustainable Streets programme is just the start of our ambition to increase active travel and reduce unnecessary car journeys, as we look to create a net-zero borough and tackle the climate emergency.”

The Digital Geography Lab at the University of Helsinki researched impacts of age, winter conditions and opening hours of services on walking accessibility, following the idea of the ‘15-minute city‘.

The team looked at the Helsinki metropolitan area and measured walking speeds in different summer and winter conditions, as well as accessibility of stores.

Specific attention was given to vary walking conditions as well as ability of the persons walking, as PhD research Elias Willberg stated: “Accessibility research and planning are often done from the average person’s point of view and without considering temporal variation. In other words, the plans are made for healthy adults who walk in good conditions, which doesn’t necessarily describe the daily reality of many older people very well, especially in winter.”

Results highlighted that the opening hours of stores and services had the biggest impact on accessibility by walking, followed by age and seasonal conditions. Looking at typical assumptions of healthy walkers, good outside conditions and open stores and services, as many as 93% of the Helsinki metropolitan area population had access to their nearest store within a 15-minute walk. But starting from the conditions of elderly people walking in the early morning during wintertime, the rate dropped to 34%.

Variations of access to the nearest store were high between and within the population groups. In some cases, access levels vary even more inside the group of older people than comparing the group with younger people.

The research team stated that more attention needs to be given to the assumptions taken for planning. Taking the needs of people with reduced mobility and walkability is a good approach to planning, as well as putting priority to actions that maintain good walking conditions like removing snow and preventing slippery surfaces during wintertime.

Professor Tuuli Toivonen summarised that the study strengthens the view of the importance of local services for an inclusive and walkable city, and that it is to the benefit of the entire population, when planning takes those in a weaker position and with less mobility as the starting point.

The article on the study is accessible here.

Passengers will be boarding the world’s first full-sized, self-driving bus service in Edinburgh starting in the spring. The project is one of seven successful initiatives from across the UK that together make up the most cutting-edge network of for-profit, autonomous passenger and freight operations in the entire world.

The grants, which are a part of the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles‘ Connected and Automated Mobility program, will assist British businesses in taking advantage of early opportunities to transform experimental projects into products that are ready for the market.

Self-driving vehicles have the potential to revolutionise passenger travel and public transportation, improving connectivity between rural areas, and lessening human error-related traffic accidents.

UK government is also committed to introducing legislation that will enable the safe and timely rollout of self-driving vehicles on UK roads.

Read the full press release here.

On 10 January 2023, Micro-Mobility for Europe (MMfE), the EU association of shared micro-mobility providers, released a first-ever factsheet on incident data involving shared e-scooters in Europe.

By making aggregated incident data from its six founding members (Bird, Bolt, Dott, Lime, Tier and Voi) transparently available, MMfE seeks to inform road safety policies that aim to reduce incident risks for vulnerable road users, such as e-scooter riders, cyclists and pedestrians, in collaboration with the EU and local authorities.

Based on over 240 million shared e-scooter trips, accounting for over 461 million km travelled, the data from 2021 on incidents demonstrate that the risk of incidents that required medical treatment has declined by 60% compared to 2019. In 2021, 5.1 injuries from shared e-scooters per million km travelled required medical assistance. Compared to private e-scooters, fatality rates on shared e-scooters are thought to be about half as high, although incident data for shared e-scooters and private e-scooters are most often combined in incident reporting. Overall, the MMfE observed a similar risk of fatal incidents for shared e-scooters riders as for cyclists. The data in the MMfE Factsheet on fatalities suggest that the fatality risk on shared e-scooters in Europe was 0.015 per 1 million km ridden in 2021 (comparable to that of bicycles) and is 20 times lower than for mopeds.

To improve road safety for vulnerable road users, MMfE makes the following recommendations, bearing in mind that cars and trucks are the main source of road traffic fatalities in the EU:

• Invest in safe infrastructure.
• Harmonise incident reporting standards across Europe.
• Acknowledge that e-scooter riders are vulnerable road users.
• Encourage enforcement of traffic rules by local authorities.

Shared micro-mobility, together with reducing car use and filling the gaps in the public transport network, plays an important role in solving cities’ most enduring transport challenges, such as traffic congestion, air and noise pollution, sustainable mobility and road safety, among others.

Thr city of Barcelona reported that in 2022 more than 220,000 bicycle trips/day were made, an increase of 11% with respect to 2021. The Catalonian capital is following the path of becoming progressively more cyclable, sustainable and active mobility friendly. Cycling lanes in Barcelona may be on a separate and designed lane, on sidewalks or on the road.

In 2022, 7.32km of new cycling infrastructure was incorporated to the urban network, with another 9 km are already planned to be implemented in 2023. Works start this January on Mallorca street, between Clot and Cartagena streets. This cycling lane will then reach the coast, the seaside of Barcelona.

In 2023, cycling lanes will reach and completely also connect the Arc de Triomf and Urquinaona square, as a new cycling lane will be implemented on Sant Pere boulevard between Girona and Roger de Llúria streets.

With the new extensions, the Catalonian capital can now rely on more than 230km of dedicated bike lanes, of which around 100km have been deployed over the past 6 years. Therefore, cycling in Barcelona has been a popular means of moving around for a while, and as of January 2023, 90% of Barcelonians can say they live within 300m distance of a cycle lane.

Nonetheless, cycling still represents a minority of the modal split. In fact, only 2% of daily commutes are made by bike. The majority of trips in the city are still made by private car, by public transport or on foot.

In December 2022, the Spanish capital Madrid became the first major European capital to operate a 100% clean fleet of municipal buses. The city’s fleet consists of 1,915 compressed natural gas (CNG) buses and 180 electric buses.

The city has plans to increase the share of zero emission buses, as it intends to acquire 10 hydrogen buses and 150 more electric buses in 2023. The creation of a clean bus fleet is one of the core policies that will help bring about clean transport within the city, as set out in the council’s Environmental Sustainability Strategy and the Madrid transport operator EMT’s Strategic Plan 2025.

However, the bus acquisitions in 2023 are not the end of the city’s plans, as the municipality aims to increase the share of electric buses in its fleet to 25% over the coming years. Furthermore, these additional buses will not be powered by electricity from the grid, as a photovoltaic system will be installed to supply the necessary electricity for these additional buses.

Overall, the city’s investment between 2020 and 2025 on its bus fleet is set to reach approximately €610 million. This demonstrates that Madrid has a clear ambition to clean its bus fleet, thus making significant progress since it purchased its first CNG bus in 1994.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has signed agreements to support the construction of phase four of the high-speed tramway network in Krakow, Poland, through a public-private partnership (PPP).

The EBRD are set to provide a loan equivalent to approximately EUR 54 million to the project company, PPP Solutions Polska 2 Sp (SPV). The rest of the financing package will be co-financed by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and a Polish commercial bank.

The project will include a new 4.5 km twin-rail track, a 900-metre tunnel, and associated infrastructure will also be upgraded. This expansion will connect two existing tramlines in Krakow, therefore increasing the system’s capacity. This will enable 40 additional tram trips per hour, or around 550 more trips per day.

EBRD Director for Infrastructure in Europe, Susan Goeransson, stated: “The project will make Krakow’s tram network faster and more convenient, encouraging more people to use trams instead of cars. The associated infrastructure will also serve pedestrians and cyclists.”

This project represents the first PPP for the municipality of Krakow and the first in Poland’s tramway sector. The EBRD has committed over EUR 1 billion to clean transport in Poland to date, of which half has been in public transport, rail and ports, and half dedicated to electric-vehicle manufacturing.

In December 2022, the Chain Bridge in Budapest was partially reopened to traffic after the completion of the initial stage of its reconstruction. For years, the iconic landmark of the Hungarian capital has been one of the most congested areas of the city, that will now be accessible only to public transport, taxis and cyclists.

The reconstruction of the oldest bridge in the city began in the summer of 2021, and 18 months later it is partially completed. This is the first reconstruction of the Chain Bridge since World War II, which entailed huge structural renovations.

The Chain Bridge is currently still closed to pedestrians, as the sidewalks are still under construction, but these are expected to be finalised by autumn 2023 when pedestrians can return. Budapest’s Mayor, Gergely Karácsony, announced that after this point a public consultation will be held to decide whether to reopen the bridge to car traffic again or to limit its access to public transport, taxis and bikes.

This is a significant turnover as in the past the bridge was highly congested and characterised by traffic jams. The extensive restoration has cost 18.8 billion Hungarian Forints (around EUR 46 million) and it is scheduled to be finalised by 2023, the year of its 150th anniversary.

The bridge was in decay and its restoration focused mainly on structural elements. In particular, 350 metres of old reinforced concrete roadway were dismantled and restored with 3.5 metre-wide eight-ton steel rods. The elements supporting the structure of the bridge have also been replaced, while other main elements were reinforced, the stone coverings were polished, and the four stone lions sitting on both sides of the Chain Bridge were extensively renovated. They have not been remanufactured in order to keep the historic landmark authenticity.

Finally, historic lanterns have been installed and are the only source of street lighting, in addition to an LED installation for architectural lighting.

The Brussels Capital Region will benefit from a loan provided by the European Investment Bank (EIB), which it will use to increase the efficiency, sustainability and attractiveness of the city’s public transport network. The €475 million loan agreement with the EIB is centred upon facilitating the urban mobility plan for the Belgian capital region, called ‘Good Move’. The loan aims to contribute to achieving a 39% reduction in CO2 levels from urban mobility in Brussels by 2030, compared to 2010.

The measures withing the Good Move plan are aimed at both improving the current public transport system within the city, as well as disincentivising the use of private vehicles, in order to increase the share of public transport use in the city. By making public transport more attractive than private transport, the Brussels Capital Region hopes to reduce the amount of traffic, and so reduce air pollution and other associated social and economic costs.

The network will be expanded by 90 trams and 43 metros, and 63 km of tram and metro tracks will be renovated. There will also be 94 new electric buses added to the existing fleet. The additional public transport capacity will be supplemented with policies to disincentivise private transport, such as reducing the number of parking spaces and expanding the number of bus lanes in the city.

A new driverless metro line will be installed in the Nuevo Norte district in Madrid after being approved by the government on the 14 December.

The automated metro will be the first of its kind in the city. The new line will span 3 kilometres and will comprise of three different stops, Centro de Negocios, Fuencarral Sur and Fuencarral Norte. It is expected to provide a service to 40,000 daily passengers when it is fully operational in 2029.

The automated line feeds into the urban redevelopment design of the area. The redevelopment seeks to only have 20% of mobility provided by private cars, and instead have more open and green spaces.

Initial investment costs are estimated to be around EUR 280 million, and will allows Madrid to join Barcelona and other cities around Europe and the world in having an automated metro system. The automation affords the line greater ability to adapt to peak times in travel and should reduce the number of possible incidents.