LOW-CARB’s Planned Activities for the 2019 European Mobility Week
12.07.2019
“Since 2002, EUROPEAN MOBILITY WEEK has sought to improve public health and quality of life through promoting clean mobility and sustainable urban transport. The campaign gives people the chance to explore the role of city streets and to experiment with practical solutions to tackle urban challenges, such as air pollution.”
This year the European Mobility Week (EMW) will be held during the 16th – 22nd of September. LOW-CARB has planned several exciting activities with its partnering cities which will be duly shared in the build-up to September. The first of which is Skawina, who has been preparing the following EMW events:
- Event Launch of their new internal low-emission bus line (LOW-CARB pilot):
The launch will take place at the main market square with a combined focus and promotion of sustainable mobility. I.e. not only will the new hybrid bus-line be promoted, but also other active modes especially walking and cycling, which is this year’s EMW theme.
- “5-10-15”:
The city will be giving a fresh update and adding new temporary signage to the walking network infrastructure that indicate the walking time-distance to nearby points-of-interest in town (e.g. to train stations, parks, the main market etc.).
- Critical Mass:
A joint bicycle ride around the town disrupting the norm of individual car transportation and an additional community walk around one of the neighbourhoods.
- Making Traveling to School Safer: Placegame
A joint-action with all the LOW-CARB project partners will be held to make travelling to and from school for children and their caregivers safer. LOW-CARB will use Placegame to evaluate and map the surroundings of three schools in Skawina one of which is in the in the Radziszów village. Placegame is a placemaking method created by the Project for Public Spaces and described in their book, How to Turn a Place Around. It draws on the collective knowledge of citizens and how they use a particular space, to determine where areas of improvement could be made. Thus, the space can be re-created to better suit the collective needs of its users, irrespective of its initial design purpose. In the case of making routes around schools safer for those who use active modes of travel (walking, biking, etc), the Placegame will draw on travellers’ knowledge of where they experience hazardous points in the school’s vicinity. The exercise will be held in three separate workshops for each of the schools in Skawina.
LOW-CARB has already been engaging with placemaking initiatives. It was recently present at the 2019 Placemaking Week Europe in Valencia during 12th-15th June. Maciej Zacher (Mobility Urbanist, Municipality of Skawina) was a part of the Growing With The City panel focus that focused on creating child-friendly cities. During his presentation he talked about the importance of safe active modes of travel particularly in the last mile for low-carbon mobility. This was directly linked to Skawina’s pilot low-emission bus line for LOW-CARB.
2019 EU Placemaking Week participants keenly read about LOW-CARB. Pictured in foreground: Lee Jia Ping and Tasnim Abdul Hadi from Think City (Kuala Lumpur).
Picture form left: Maciej Zacher (Mobility Urbanist, Municipality of Skawina) shares LOW-CARB’s activities and goals with Robin Abad Ocubillo (Urban Designer, San Francisco Planning Department).
- Making Traveling to School Safer: Ozone and air quality difference for children & adults.
The Clean Air Department of Skawina would like to run a small study to determine if children breathe different amounts of ozone compared to adults. They would measure the ozone at two different heights (1,60m and 0,85m) around selected schools, to determine if children are more vulnerable to higher levels of ozone when walking to school.
