Active Travel Working Group meeting: Steps to Walkable Cities

On Tuesday, 20 April. (15h00-16h45 CET), the POLIS Active Travel Working Group will meet to discuss policies and strategies for supporting walking, share best practices from cities and hear insights from experts across Europe.

POLIS' Active Travel Working Group looks at the impact that urban and regional transport has on the environment and on health, with a focus on the role of soft modes of transport, such as walking and cycling.

Walking is integral to society’s recovery from COVID-19 and to creating resilient cities that are less car-dependent. People need safe, enabling environments to walk and cycle – not just for recreational reasons, but also and even more for everyday journeys. Increasing walkability makes cities more sustainable, healthy, liveable and resilient to future (potential) shocks. The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted this. Yet, walking needs to be prioritised and  infrastructure needs to be improved in order to make it a safe and convenient option.

Steps to Walkable Cities (SWC) is a series consisting of three key meetings: 

• SWC I: Encouraging walking through strategic planning
• SWC 2: Pathways to 15-minute cities. (Enabling proximity to improve walkability)
• SWC 3: Reallocating space to promote walking