Eurocities members and their initiatives featured prominently among the finalists revealed today for the European Mobility Week Awards, the Award for Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning (SUMP Award) and the EU Urban Road Safety Award.
Initiatives that took place during the week of 16-22 September last year in Sofia, Belgrade, Bilbao, Grenoble Alpes Metropole and Heraklion all made the shortlists for the three awards, which are this year based around the theme of ‘zero-emissions mobility for all’.
Focus on active and safe mobility
Bulgarian capital Sofia was one of three larger municipalities chosen as finalist for the European Mobility Week award, with the jury praising the city’s focus on road safety and active mobility, with many interesting events throughout the week highlighting these themes, such as a national walking contest. Initiatives also included broad-ranging permanent measures, such as extending the city’s metro line. Sofia goes up against Granada, Spain, and Moenchengladbach, Germany, in the final.
Belgrade, Bilbao and Grenoble-Alpes Metropole all featured as finalists in the 9th SUMP Award. The Serbian capital was praised for overall strategy to achieve shared, integrated, and inclusive mobility with ambitious targets. Bilbao was noted for its gendered approach to mobility, which includes a dedicated gender mobility action plan, and Grenoble-Alpes Metropole won praise for its approach to sustainable mobility planning that focuses on meeting the mobility needs of vulnerable groups.
Lastly, Greek city Heraklion will face Bilbao and Quart de Poblet in the EU Urban Road Safety Award. Heraklion’s monitoring and evaluation work around the implementation of speed reduction programmes near schools proved popular with the jury, as did Bilbao’s widely reported 30km/h city, a part of its efforts to reduce the number of road traffic victims.
Successful year
The winners of the three awards will be announced in an online awards ceremony on 19 April. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 2,900 towns and cities registered their participation in the campaign, marking 2020 as one of the most successful years to date.
The juries judging the entries in each category are comprised of mobility and transport experts from NGOs such as Transport & Environment, associations such as the International Association of Public Transport and International Federation of Pedestrians and academics from institutions such as the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
More information on how to attend the awards ceremony can be found here.
