Walk21 estimates that nearly half of countries have some form of national policy and is in the process of researching the published documents in the pan-European region thanks to a grant from VREF. By understanding the processes that governments follow to develop and deliver walking policy Walk21 hopes to inspire and train other national leads to further develop their policies to benefit people walking.

Upcoming interviews

5 April

Austria, 15-16 CET – Register
Slovenia, 16-17 CET- Register

12 April

Norway, 15-16 CET- Register
Greece, 16-17 CET- Register

The first interviews in the series were held with Scotland’s policy lead Rona Gibb and the walking manager in The Netherlands, Filip v an As. The Scottish policy was first considered in 2003 and was one of the first to publish in 2014. A new national strategy is due for Scotland is in development with support of both the Health and Wellbeing Minister and the world’s first Active Travel Minister.

Meanwhile in The Netherlands, Filip turned the table on his political career when he saw a policy gap and has expertly built a network of nearly 60 partners who are now collaborating to fund and deliver a package of impressive actions.

Rona’s engaging interviews is already on the Walk21 YouTube channel here:

• Scotland – Rona Gibb, Paths for All Scotland – Let’s Get Scotland Walking
• Netherlands – Filip van As, Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (The Netherlands)

Ask your question

The interviews will be live on Zoom. You are invited to join and raise your questions.

Would you like to submit your questions before? Send them to network@walk21.com or leave them on our social media: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Registrations

Attendance is free. Please register here.

Austria

Host: Jim Walker, Walk21

Guests: Robert Thaler (Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology) and Angelini Alessandra (Environment Agency Austria)

Date: 5 April 2023, 15:00-16:00 (Central European Time)

Slovenia

Host: Jim Walker, Walk21

Guest: Tadej Zaucer, Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Energy, Slovenia

Date: 5 April 2023, 16:00-17:00 (Central European Time)

Norway

Host: Jim Walker, Walk21

Guests: Liv Rakel Øvstedal and Guro Berge

Date: 12 April 2023, 15:00-16:00 (Central European Time)

Greece

Host: Jim Walker, Walk21

Guest: Kalliopi Papadaki, Hellenic Ministry of Environment and Energy

Date: 12 April 2023, 16:00-17:00 (Central European Time)

The post National policy for walking – Join the conversation! appeared first on Walk21.

In response, Walk21 developed the ‘Every Step of The Way’ project in partnership with Irish Pedestrians Network, TU Dublin and CEDEUS, aiming to make Dublin a safer, more inclusive and welcoming place for women to walk and to access public transport. The Final Report of the project is published and provides an insight into how participative mapping can be used to assess walkability.

A grant from the Alstom Foundation allowed the team to create a new tool to enable women to map their perception of the cities ‘Walkability’ providing engineers with new insights to help them respond with targeted infrastructure improvements. The Walkability.app tool is free to use and in the Apple and Google stores.

The project recorded 487 walking experiences, linked to 858 observations of the public space in Dublin’s LUAS line catchment area. Walkability maps were created, for the first time in Dublin, and data shared with the city authorities that gave a new level of insight into the reality of women’s experiences when walking in the city.

The project has proven that there is an affordable and practical way that empowers women to share the reality of the experiences, so that the managing authority has a clearer opportunity to target responsive investment positively, support more sustainable transport behaviour, and ensure a fairer society.

Although it is logical that any investment made, in response to the concerns raised by those using the app, will positively influence their transport choices and satisfaction with those choices overall, further studies, in multiple settings, are likely to be required over several years to prove this assumption.

Looking forwards, Walk21 is keen for the tool to be used in other communities to benefit people walking. The Walkability.app could potentially enable citizens of any age, gender or ability, to share their experiences. The geo-located data provides an opportunity for city planners and engineers to invest in a programme of works that could benefit users of schools, hospitals, retail areas or residential neighbourhoods as well as public transport lines.

Please get in touch to learn more about the Walkability.app tool

Downloads

The report Women’s perceived walkability at the Luas Tram catchment area in Dublin – A data evaluation report using the Walkability.App is available now

Links

The post Report: Walkability App registers women’s perception of city environments in Dublin appeared first on Walk21.

Women experience the city differently than men, in part because they are more concerned about security issues related to aggression and harassment. These concerns take the form of precautionary or avoidant behaviour. Fear of violence, perception of risk, and a sense of vulnerability are major issues when moving around the city, especially during the night time.

The new project STEP UP will address these challenges in a case study of Milan, Italy. The project was launched on 7 March 2023.

STEPUP has a duration of 12 months and is a collaboration between Transform Transport (coordinator), TeMA Lab, Sex & the City APS, and Walk21.

Links

The post New project STEPUP will address women’s feelings of safety when walking appeared first on Walk21.

Walk21 Europe is delighted to be nominated as a knowledge partner in the new Interreg project Active Cities, which was launched this month in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. Specifically, Walk21 will provide expertise to citizen-led street transformations and mobility hub pilots in eight cities in North-West Europe. We will also support the development of planning frameworks for active mobility, as a blueprint for healthier mobility across Europe.

Urban planning, mobility and health are closely related. Car-centred city planning contributes to air and noise pollution as well as less physical activity, leading to thousands of premature deaths each year across Europe. The Active Cities Interreg project seeks to answer: How can we effectively redesign our cities to support cleaner, safer and healthier lifestyles?

Street transformations and mobility hub pilots

The EU-funded Active Cities project will implement 8 pilot initiatives with tactical urbanism (planning-by-doing) and citizen-led, short-term, low-cost, and scalable interventions. Awareness campaigns and incentive programs will also promote walking and cycling and empower citizens to take ownership of the active mobility transition in their city. These interventions will feed into planning frameworks for active mobility that will become a blueprint for healthy mobility across Europe.

Knowledge partner

For Walk21, the project is an opportunity to support cities in the redesign of urban spaces that will support all the people walking already and encourage more people to choose to be active too. Walk21 will assist the cities to engage their citizens and explore, with affordable tools, how they perceive public space and how its design is able to induce behavioural change. As a knowledge partner, Walk21 will also provide expertise to the Active Cities throughout the project and ensure the integrity and measurable impact of the projects’ overall ambition is realised.

Project details

Bax and Company are supporting the management of the Active Cities partnership which includes 3 knowledge partners (Aalborg University (DK), KU Leuven Institute for Mobility (BE) and Walk21 Europe (NL)) and the urban planning and mobility departments of 8 cities: City of Leeuwarden (NL), Groningen (NL), Aarhus (DK), Bergen (NO), Hamburg (DE), Lund (SE), Mechelen (BE) and Lille (FR)

More information

Carlos Cañas, Walk21: carlos.canas@walk21.com

Interreg North Sea Region

Active Cities receives funding from Interreg North Sea Region.

The post From sitting traffic to active people – Walk21 will provide expertise to eight cities in new Interreg project appeared first on Walk21.

The academic journal Laws has opened a Call for Papers for a Special Issue on the theme Law, Accessibility and Inclusion for Pedestrians with Disabilities. This Special Issue will aim at understanding how states can better use law and policy to foster more inclusive urban environments. The Call is open to experts from multiple backgrounds and disciplines.

Law and policy are a vital part of making streets accessible. At the international level, this point has been highlighted in recent years by developments such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Habitat Agenda.

This Special Issue will bring together a collection of articles which explore and critically evaluate the role that law plays in creating and dismantling barriers for pedestrians with disabilities. It will also reflect on the effectiveness of law and policy (at international, national, regional or local level).

Interdisciplinary

Although the journal is an academic one called ‘Laws’ and there is a legal dimension to the special issue, the School of Law of the University of Leeds is keen on contributions from experts who do not have legal backgrounds. The issue will be interdisciplinary and should be relevant to people working in activism, policy and practice as well as in academia.

Types of contribution

There is some flexibility about the type of contribution that can be submitted. Articles are preferably between 6.000 and 10.000 words, but the journal also welcomes shorter review-type pieces, especially from people working outside academia.

Do you need help?

The editorial team is happy to provide guidance and feedback on initial ideas. Please send an outline of your idea in the form of an abstract between 100 and 200 words to Maria Orchard (m.orchard@leeds.ac.uk). You are also welcome to ask any questions that you might have.

Deadline

The call is open until 1 June 2023. Read the full call here: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/laws/special_issues/9I24BPOG90

Guest editors

Dr. Maria Orchard (University of Leeds) (m.orchard@leeds.ac.uk)
Prof. Dr. Anna Lawson (University of Leeds)

Guest editor assistants

Dr. Victor Santiago Pineda (Pineda Foundation / World Enabled)
Jim Walker (Walk21)

The post Call for Papers: ‘Law, Accessibility and Inclusion for Pedestrians with Disabilities’ appeared first on Walk21.

CIVINET Greece-Cyprus and Walk21 share a common commitment to creating environments that offer a safe, healthy and attractive experience for people’s everyday mobility. This is already being recognised by numerous cities across Greece in their Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs).

The demand from citizens for low carbon transport systems, improvements to public health, and equitable access to education, health care, work and green space are fuelling the urgency and pace of the transition. CIVINET Greece-Cyprus has actively supported the transition process in Greek and Cypriot communities for many years and has a diverse network of members that includes large metropolitan areas as well as small island communities.

CIVINET Mobility Academy 2023

As a first step for this collaboration, nine Greek cities will participate in the recently launched CIVINET Mobility Academy 2023 in Thessaloniki on 10 February where Jim Walker, the Founder of Walk21 will provide a key-note address (Agios Dimitrios, Nea Smyrni, Vari Voula Vouliagmeni, Veria, Kavala, Kozani, Heraklion, Hersonisos, and Karpenisi).

After the keynote the cities will be encouraged to discuss common and individual challenges and will learn from experiences in Thessaloniki. Future Academy meetings are likely to also include study visits to Zagreb, Ljubljana and Athens to learn from their mobility transition experiences.

Walk21, in partnership with CIVINET Greece-Cyprus, will support the transition strategies at a national and city level as well as through the Municipal Accessibility Plans and the Local Urban Plans where appropriate. The embedding of the needs of people walking into policy frameworks will be complemented by expert advice on street and neighbourhood transformations when required. Walk21 will share learnings from other communities around the world and looks forward to helping inspire safe, healthy, and active mobility in partnership across Greece.

CIVINET Greece-Cyprus

CIVINET Greece-Cyprus is the network of local public authorities of that are dedicated to promoting sustainable mobility. It is the Greek-speaking branch of the CIVITAS National Networks (CIVINETs), the national networks of the European CIVITAS Community.

Website: www.civitas.eu/civinets/civinet-greece-cyprus

More information

• Kosmas Anagnostopoulos, CIVINET Greece-Cyprus, Coordinator, ka@civinet.gr
• Jim Walker, Director, jim.walker@walk21.com

The post Walk21 and CIVINET Greece-Cyprus partner to enable active travel appeared first on Walk21.

The post National policy training – Registrations have opened appeared first on Walk21.

With the Vienna Declaration of 2021, Ministers of the Pan-European Region agreed to establish a Pan-European Masterplan for Walking by October 2023.  The Masterplan should provide national authorities with a framework and guidance for the developments of national walking strategies and action plans. 

At the third meeting of the THE PEP partnership, hosted by the Government of The Netherlands, partners visited Rotterdam to draw inspiration from the city’s walking strategy, Rotterdam Loopt 2025.

National policy training

Parallel to the development of the Pan-European Masterplan for Walking, a series of online training will be held to supports national governments in the development of national walking policies. The series is open to the 56 national governments of the Pan-European Region and will be held online in May and June 2023. Registrations have opened.

The training series are supported by a grant from the Volvo Research and Education Foundation (VREF). The Swedish organisation is supporting the training series as part of its commitment to strengthen international research and research capacity on walking as a mode of transport, in ways that can contribute to more equitable access and sustainable mobility in urban transport.

Links

• UNECE: Netherlands to host meetings of THE PEP partnerships on active mobility and sustainable tourism mobility
• UNECE: Towards a pan-European master plan on walking

More information

VIENNA DECLARATION

Building forward better by transforming to new, clean, safe, healthy and inclusive mobility and transport.

The post A Pan-European Masterplan for Walking: partners draw inspiration from Rotterdam appeared first on Walk21.

Over 400 organisations from 73 countries signed the PATH (Partnership for Active Travel and Health) open letter calling on government and city leaders to invest more in walking and cycling to achieve climate goals and improve people’s lives.

Signatories to the letter came from a wide variety of organisations including those working for road safety, clean air, public health and public transport, as well as walking and cycling advocacy groups.  

During the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, the letter was presented to representatives of governments from Egypt, Ethiopia, The Netherlands and Portugal.  The ambitions of the letter, as well as the findings of PATH’s new report Make way for walking and cycling, were also shared and promoted by PATH members at COP27 in a range of meetings, talks and official UNFCCC side events.

Sessions about active travel covered finance, gender, integration with public transport, the challenges and opportunities for African cities and more.  New initiatives for active travel, that will help deliver on these ambitions were announced at COP27 by PATH partners including:

• Training and research by the Walk21 Foundation and the Volvo Research and Educational Foundation, in collaboration with – THE PEP development of the Pan-European Masterplan for Walking;
• A call for an Active Mobility Fund by the Transport Decarbonisation Alliance, with seed funding from the Dutch Government announced by Minister Vivianne Heijnen.

Whereas last year’s COP26 featured a Transport Day and a Transport Declaration – which was amended to highlight the importance of active travel following intense pressure from advocacy groups – the COP27 paid less attention to transport, and to the greater role walking and cycling must play in decarbonising transport. However, the strength of commitment demonstrated from the signatories to the letter indicate the partnership will continue to seek to raise further awareness and unlock walking and cycling’s potential to accelerate the achievement of climate goals and other benefits, through greater prioritisation and investment, including through national transport, health and environment strategies. Next steps include working to strengthen inclusion of walking and cycling within Nationally Determined Contributions and Voluntary National Reviews.

Sheila Watson, Deputy Director of the FIA Foundation, said:

‘Enabling more people to walk and cycle safely is essential to reducing transport’s 27% share of carbon emissions and achieving the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, yet walking and cycling continue to lack priority in the transport and mobility mix and the wider climate agenda. Our open letter on the occasion of COP27 was published to draw attention to this and to call for greater action on the part of governments and city leaders.’

Isabella Burczak, UCI said

‘“’We are delighted that over 400 organisations from across the globe joined our call to action by signing this letter. This underscores how much support there is for prioritising and investing more in walking and cycling as one of the best solutions we have to achieve climate goals, improve public health and deliver a range of other societal benefits.’

Lucas Harms, Dutch Cycling Embassy, said:

”PATH and the wider walking and cycling community and hundreds of supporting organisations have made their voices heard at COP27. Going forwards we will continue to call for national and city governments to commit to prioritising and investing in walking and cycling – including strategies, plans, funding and concrete actions for infrastructure, campaigns, land use planning, integration with public transport, and capacity building.’

www.pathforwalkingcycling.com

About PATH – Partnership for Active Travel and Health

PATH is a new global coalition calling on governments and cities to make a real commitment to walking and cycling as a key solution to the climate, health and equity challenges we face.

PATH partners seek to unlock walking and cycling’s potential to accelerate the achievement of climate goals and other benefits, through greater prioritisation and investment including through national transport, health and environment strategies and other policy instruments. It is comprised of leading organisations in the sustainable mobility community who collaborate to promote walking and cycling and is coordinated by a core group consisting of the FIA Foundation – who are funding the coordination work – Walk21, the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) and the UN Environment Program (UNEP).

PATH partners include:

For further information, contact:

FIA Foundation
Kate Turner
k.turner@fiafoundation.org
+44 (0) 787 989 32 22

European Cyclists’ Federation
Michael Brennan
m.brennan@ecf.com
+32 (0) 483 08 38 81

Walk21
Jim Walker
jim.walker@walk21.com

The post Walking and cycling must play a greater role in decarbonising transport, according to over 400 organisations: report from COP27 appeared first on Walk21.

Law and policy are a vital part of making streets accessible. At the international level, this point has been highlighted in recent years by developments such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Habitat Agenda.

This Special Issue will bring together a collection of articles which explore and critically evaluate the role that law plays in creating and dismantling barriers for pedestrians with disabilities. It will also reflect on the effectiveness of law and policy (at international, national, regional or local level).

The call is open until 1 June 2023. Read the full call here: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/laws/special_issues/9I24BPOG90

Guest editors

Dr. Maria Orchard (University of Leeds)
Prof. Dr. Anna Lawson (University of Leeds)

Guest editor assistants

Dr. Victor Santiago Pineda (Pineda Foundation / World Enabled)
Jim Walker (Walk21)

The post Call for Papers: ‘Law, Accessibility and Inclusion for Pedestrians with Disabilities’ appeared first on Walk21.