“Ljubljana - winner of the Official European Green Capital Award - will
from today act as ambassador for sustainable urban development, sharing its
local, best practices and encouraging other cities across Europe to become
greener, healthier and more sustainable” – source European Commission’s Facebook page
This post was the motivation for raising various queries, such as “What
is the European Green Capital Award?”, “Which are the criteria for winning it?”
and “Which actions and changes, regarding sustainable mobility mainly, had to
be done by Ljubljana’s authorities in order to win the award?”
The European Green Capital Award is a European Commission initiative
aimed to recognise and reward local efforts, which have made to improve the
environment, the economy and the quality of urban life.
The award is given to the city that achieves high environmental
standards, sets ambitious goals for further environmental improvement and
sustainable development, and serves as a role model to other cities. The wining
cities to date include Stockholm (Sweden) in 2010, Hamburg (Germany) in 2011,
Vitoria – Gasteiz (Spain) in 2012, Nantes (France) in 2013, Copenhagen
(Denmark) in 2014, Bristol (United Kingdom) in 2015, Ljubljana (Slovenia) in
2016
Concerning Ljubljana, since 2006 more than 1600 projects have contributed
to the renewal of the Slovenian capital leading to its current synthesis and
the win of many national and international awards, such as the European
Mobility Week Award in 2013, the bronze Access City Award in 2015 and the European
Green Capital Award in 2016.
In the past, the city center of Ljubljana used to be overcrowded with
cars and the levels of air pollution were high. Since 2007 and according to the
new Sustainable Mobility Plan which have been adopted, an ecological zone has
been created, as the old city center is closed to all motorised vehicles,
except of specific time windows, when the deliveries were made. Also, the
transformations, which were made in part of the “Slovenska Street” and the
banks of “Ljubljanica River”, improved the quality of public areas and turned
them into attractive areas for pedestrians, cyclists and users of city buses.
Consequently, the black carbon emissions have decreased by 58%.
Furthermore, the introduction of the multipurpose “Urbana” smart city
card has made daily transports easier as it facilitates payments for many
services. The most important of them concern rides on city buses, parking in
public car parks and use of the funicular to Ljubljana. Card holders can also
hire city bikes from the self service bike sharing system, named Bicike (LJ),
and pay for services within the “Park and Ride (P+R)" system. These
features of “Urbana” card combined with the modernization of public transport
encourage citizens to combine different means of transport for their transports
instead of using private vehicles and thus, contributed to lower pollution
levels.
Concerning public transport, the regular updating of Ljubljana’s bus
fleet, as most transport vehicles meet high environmental standards, the
introduction of new and optimize bus lines and the installment of modern
real-time displays showing scheduled bus arrivals at bus stops are the reasons
of the increment of the number of city transport users every year. Between 2010
and 2014, the number of city transport users has increased by 18.5 %.
Additionally, a 34 % rise in journeys was also recorded on intercity and
integrated lines between 2013 and 2014.
One more action which encourages sustainable mobility concerns the bike
riding. As Ljubljana is a small size city situated on a plain with a mild
climate, it is possible for citizens and visitors to commute by bike.
Therefore, since 2011, more than 3 million journeys have been accomplished with
the bikes offered by LJ system in the 220 km of managed cycling routes which
are offered in the city.
Moreover, and regarding the bronze Access City Award in 2015, Ljubljana
is recognised as one of the most successful European cities in the field of
public space accessibility and public transportation for people with
disabilities. The Demand Responsive Transport is one of the special programmes
available for people with disabilities. Users can call a special phone number
and request transport with an adapted vehicle, which means a vehicle with a ramp
and space for persons with disabilities or a low-floor vehicle on its regular
line.
Of course, the actions and changes, which improved quality of city life
and led to the win of the European Green Capital Award, did not only concern
public mobility and transportation. Ljubljana is the European capital with the
highest ratio of green per inhabitant, as 75% of public areas are covered by
green areas and 45% of them by native forests. In addition, it is one of the
very few European capitals that can boast drinking water with no prior
technological treatment. Concerning separately collected waste, the Slovenian
capital has the largest share of it and thus is the first European capital to
be part of the Zero Waste Europe network with a Zero Waste Strategy. Finally
and regarding energy consumption more than 70% of homes in Ljubljana have
already been connected to a district heating system and a natural gas network.
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