Mobility is one of the areas in which Viladecans is working to achieve its mission of becoming an emission-neutral city, and one of the tools contributing to this strategy is the European project PUMA (Plans for Urban Mobility Actions), financed by the URBACT programme. This network, which aims to contribute to achieving climate-neutral and sustainable mobility in small and medium-sized cities by involving local stakeholders, held its second meeting last week in Viladecans.
Mayor Carles Ruiz was in charge of welcoming the participants and explained that, with regard to mobility, we are living a moment of transition from vehicles with combustion engines to other sustainable and low CO2 emission types "to which we have to adapt", such as electric motors. In his speech he also pointed to data as a key factor in "knowing what is happening and thus improving people's quality of life through new initiatives such as the new Viladecans al Dia website that we have just launched, which collects all the information on mobility in the city in real time.
Over the course of two days, working groups were formed to learn how to ensure that mobility plans have an integrated approach, considering environmental, social and economic issues, among others. The PUMA network team also got to know first-hand the projects for the pacification of streets and the cycle lanes network of Viladecans in order to draw inspiration from the city's experience but also to detect possible improvements.
During the meeting, URBACT expert Karolina Orcholska noted that "Viladecans is one of the great cases of this network. The city has a lot to teach and share with the other members because it has a lot of experience in different fields. This is something that will motivate other members, especially the newer ones". For his part, the coordinator of the PUMA network, Aksels Ruperts, stressed that "Viladecans has shown great interest and curiosity in this project right from the start. We like the fact that it is a city in the metropolitan area and that it looks beyond its borders, because it means that it has a broader vision of mobility in general. We also very much appreciate that it has so many strategies around sustainability, equality, green technologies and energy transition, because it is a city with a lot of experience".
Integrated Action Plan to achieve the objectives
Through PUMA, the City Council and various local stakeholders will define actions that will contribute to sustainable and CO2 emission-neutral mobility, in line with the 2030 climate neutrality mission, which will be included in the Integrated Action Plan as well as in the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP), which is currently being updated. The document will be aligned with the actions of the Local Urban Agenda in terms of sustainable mobility (deployment of the Low Emission Zone, improvement of the bus service, cycle lane network, parking...), and will also help to make them a reality.
The PUMA project in Viladecans has a budget of 83.543 EUR, which are ERDF funds and 65% of it is financed by the URBACT programme. As partners of the project Viladecans is accompanied by the cities of Liepaja (Latvia), coordinator of the project, Dienvidkurzeme (Latvia), Taurage (Lithuania), Larissa (Greece), Gdańsk (Poland), Cento (Italy) and Nova Gorica (Slovakia), and the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences of the University of Zagreb (Croatia).
More information about the project at https://www.viladecans.cat/en/puma
