From sitting traffic to active people – Walk21 will provide expertise to eight cities in new Interreg project

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.