Parliament calls for Strong European Leadership on Road Safety – including urban areas
A new Resolution from the European Parliament calls on the European Commission to ramp up its efforts for Road Safety, highlighting key topics for urban areas.
At this week’s European Conference on Road Safety Results, MEP Elena Kountoura, the rapporteur who prepared this Resolution, pointed out that “establishing a strong European leadership is a prerequisite to close the disparities among member states and allow for an effective implementation of a safe system.”
This strong European leadership must include work on urban areas, and the Resolution highlights at least three items of special concern.
First, urban nodes. As work on the European TEN-T network advances, and regulations on urban nodes are discussed, the Resolution calls for measures to further strengthen road safety in urban nodes, and asks the Commission to set out the bases for future investment decisions relating to road safety. The purpose is to develop targets and strong motivations for policy changes as well as a harmonized methodology that would facilitate the exchange for best practices among EU member states.
Another special concern is speeding, a key factor in road fatalities and serious injuries. The Resolution calls on the Commission to come up with a recommendation to apply safe speed limits in line with the safe system approach for all road types, including 30km/h speed limits in residential areas and where there are high numbers of cyclists and pedestrians, and also “where there is a potential to increase cycling and walking levels”.
Similar speed limits were applied in Bilbao, through the Bilbao 30-30 project, which was recently recognised with the 2021 EU Urban Road Safety Award, and in Brussels, where the 30km/h speed limit now applies to most of the city’s territory.
Finally, the regulation calls for a promotion of cooperation towards safe and sustainability mobility measures in urban areas, in view of the upcoming revision of the Urban Mobility Package. More specifically, it asks for a shift away from individual motorised transport towards safer, healthier, and more sustainable transport modes such as walking and cycling, especially in dense urban areas.
The POLIS Working Group for Safety & Security is actively pursuing these topics. If you want more information, need support, or want to get involved, contact Pedro Homem de Gouveia (pgouveia@polisnetwork.eu)
