Clean collective mobility must be a priority for towns and cities if Europe is to achieve its climate targets and improve quality of urban life. Tackling the environmental challenges, achieving renewed economic growth, and enhancing health and wellbeing must be linked with ensuring important societal objectives of affordable and accessible mobility. To realise these important goals affordable and attractive public transport and active mobility (walking and cycling) should be central to the future Urban Mobility Framework.
The European Passengers’ Federation together with the International Association of Public Transport (UITP), The European Passenger Transport Operators (EPTO), POLIS (the network of European cities and regions for transport innovation), SGI Europe, Walk 21, the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF), the European Metropolitan Transport Authorities (EMTA), Eurocities, the European Disability Forum (EDF) the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), the Community of European Railways (CER) and UNIFE call upon the European Commission to adopt an Urban Mobility framework that places accessible public transport at the forefront, enabling it to achieve its maximum potential to deliver these objectives. The scale and speed of these changes requires a wide and concerted effort across all levels of government. The Commission must ensure Member States fulfil their obligations and support their local authorities in delivering sustainable urban mobility.
While each association provides individual input to the European Commission, we jointly express that these key points are central to the development and delivery of the Urban Mobility Initiative:
- Ensure that SUMPs accelerate the uptake of sustainable and collective mobility;
- Support sustainable mobility with appropriate funding opportunities;
- Create multimodal mobility on the ground and by harnessing the benefits of data.
The full statement was sent to the European Commission and can be found here.