This year has been a milestone for Walk21. We have celebrated our 20th conference anniversary and have established many new relationships and realized transformative projects to improve the walking environment. We thank you all for your belief, engagement, commitment, support, joy and challenges that keep us walking. Some of the highlights of 2019 have been:
Small Steps, Big Change in Medellín, Colombia.
This year saw the benefits of the “Pequenos Paseos” (Small Steps) campaign, a project that Walk21 created in partnership with FundaPeatón and the City of Medellín to help make young people’s walking journeys safer, easier and more welcoming in the city. We want to thank the Alstom Foundation for supporting this project.
Delivering 8 Steps to Walkable Cities
In the first half of 2019 we visited 5 cities in the Global South to explore the implementation gap around walking and provided new training on the 8 Steps to a Walkable City.
Pedestrians are VALUABLE Road Users
In June we had the pleasure to introduce the concept of VALUABLE (instead of Vulnerable) Roads Users to the SUMP Conference in Groningen. At the UITP Conference in Stockholm we emphasized that better walkability underpins our social networks and our public transport systems. And at this year’s Velo-city Conference in Dublin we joined the opening plenary discussion about The City of the Future. Our intensive conference schedule in 2019 definitely shows: Walking will be part of the City of the Future!
Thank you for the invitations to these conferences and the opportunity to remind folks that we need to keep our feet on the ground for true equity and accessibility of our communities, to think how we can leverage investment for improving the basics and to temper the seductions of startups while ensuring our cities respond well to new opportunities for better and lighter mobility in the future.
Guidance Document on Promoting Mobility Behaviour Change
As an active member the European Partnership for Urban Mobility Walk21 has coordinated a new guidance document “Promoting Mobility Behaviour Change” for cities, businesses and community groups wishing to encourage people to use their cars less and walk more. The 32 page guidance explores the evidence of what has proven to be effective from experiences of previous projects funded by the European Union.
European Mobilityweek 2019 was all about Walking!
In September Bronwen joined the launch of European Mobilityweek in Brussels – and was perfectly colour coordinated!
Jim visited Iceland to speak at the opening of the first ever Icelandic Car-free Day where he had the pleasure to meet with Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir (image center) and Sesselja Trausdadóttir, Managing Director of Bikeability in Iceland (image right).
The 20th Walk21 Conference in Rotterdam
From 7-10 October about 600 walking enthusiasts convened in Rotterdam, The Netherlands to WALK THE TALK during our 20th Walk21 Conference.
The Rotterdam conference emphasized how walking can make cities SMART, HEALTHY & FOR EVERYONE. During the four day program participants enjoyed various interactive formats that shared cutting edge insights into urban projects, strategies and research for how to improve walking and the quality of public space.
We are still inspired by all those ideas, projects and visions.
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