SNOWBALL - Demonstration, Take-Up and Further Dissemination of Sustainable Integrated Planning Methods in European Cities
Overview
Background & policy context:
Urban structure has a great impact on transport demand. Approaches that integrate transport and urban planning may cause reduced transport and thus energy savings.
SNOWBALL addresses two major specific barriers:
- the lack of multi-sectoral skills and
- institutional barriers.
Professionals tend to be trained in specific sectoral applications (engineering, urban design, transport modelling, etc.), which can lead to sub-optimal planning solutions. Furthermore, skills such as evaluation of methods, consensus building, and communication are rarely trained.
These additional, complementary skills can often make the difference in successful implementation of new, sustainable planning and design approaches. Key elements for addressing these obstacles include the application of a "change management" programme, the development of a network for experts to discuss their experiences and the identification of best practices.
Objectives:
The main objective of the SNOWBALL project is to provide municipalities with experiences on sustainable integrated transport and urban planning.
Specific objectives of the project are:
- to provide municipalities with experiences and tools to sustainably (re)create urban areas;
- to implement integrated urban planning methods in 6 cities in 4 different countries;
- to disseminate the evaluated project knowledge to other European cities. For this purpose, at least 3 extra cities per country (12 cities in total) will be directly involved through four national quality support groups. Over 300 cities will be targeted by the dissemination activities;
- to reduce the demand for transport, facilitate a modal shift and significantly reduce energy consumption, concentrations of local pollutants such as noise and traffic accidents by the use of integrated planning methods;
- to add value to previous EC actions such as Ecocity, CIVITAS and Cities of Tomorrow.
The expected results of the project are:
- the anchoring of integrated-approach thinking in 6 cities;
- integrated urban plans in 6 cities;
- national quality support groups (expert networks) on integrated planning in 6 countries (Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia);
- a web based toolkit of integrated planning methods;
- identified best practices.
Methodology:
SNOWBALL elaborates mostly on the work that has been carried out by ECOCITY and CIVITAS. Both used the idea of integrated urban planning, and mainly focused on the development of criteria and concepts, and their demonstration. In addition, SNOWBALL is using actual implementation as promising examples for other cities and setting op structures for further dissemination.
SNOWBALL is presented by a group of cities and experts on urban planning. Recent experiences based on demonstration and research (Ecocity) has showed that integrated urban planning will lead to plans of better quality, in terms of energy savings and the environment. SNOWBALL introduces two types of integrated urban planning methods: Local Transport Performance, an area-based approach that reduces energy intensive transport demand, and Drive Slow Go Faster, a corridor based method that improves energy efficiency of traffic by establishing constant reduced speeds.
In SNOWBALL, 6 cities (Verona, San Sebastian-Donostia, San Fernando, Zvolen, Martin and Ludwigsburg) will implement plans following these concepts. The cities are supported by 3 cities (Hilversum, Stockholm, Trnava) that implemented similar plans earlier. Furthermore, quality support groups are set up throughout Europe, to disseminate knowledge and skills on integrated planning. The implementation cities are trained to support other cities later on, thus getting a SNOWBALL effect of integrated planning.
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