POLIS Conference 2025 kicks off in Utrecht with a call to put health at the heart of mobility

The Annual POLIS Conference 2025 opened on 26 November at Utrecht’s Beatrix Theatre, gathering over 1,000 mobility leaders, policymakers, researchers, and innovators.

Following the first round of Parallel Sessions, the conference saw its official inauguration with the Opening Plenary ‘Healthy if Happy: Mobility as a Mood’.

Deputy Mayors Senna Maatoug and Eva Oosters opened the session with an energising and highly interactive address, highlighting how Utrecht continues to shape mobility systems that prioritise public health, community wellbeing, and accessible travel for all.

Oosters remarked:

'Utrecht is shaped by people who cycle with joy, who walk with purpose, and who feel that the streets belong to them. If mobility does not feel good, people will not use it—simple as that'.

Maatoug added:

'This is why we are asking you, right here and now: what does healthy mobility feel like to you? Because policy only works when it matches lived experience. That is our compass.'

A turning point for active mobility

The keynote address was delivered by Sam Johnson, Sustainable Transport Specialist at the World Bank, who urged governments to commit to a transformative yet achievable pledge: dedicating up to 10% of road budgets to active mobility by 2035.

He described this moment—at the dawn of the UN Decade of Sustainable Transport (2026–2035)—as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shift global priorities. Investment in active mobility, he argued, has long been an afterthought, left to symbolic projects and fragmented local initiatives. Raising spending year by year—'just one additional per cent annually', he noted—could mainstream walking, wheeling, and cycling in every country, from large European cities to rural communities in low- and middle-income countries.

Sam Johnson — Credits: MichielTon.com

Johnson emphasised that the economic case is unambiguous: studies show benefit-cost ratios as high as 16:1, driven primarily by health gains. 'Every child has a right to a safe route to school', he stressed, explaining that children are a city’s 'canary in the coal mine'—a direct indicator of whether a transport system is truly liveable. Good active travel policy, he added, is not idealistic but pragmatic: healthier populations are more productive, more resilient, and less costly to public finances.

But investment alone is not enough. Johnson insisted on robust safeguards to avoid box-ticking and low-quality infrastructure. He pointed to examples such as Active Travel England, where funding is tied to design standards and measurable outcomes, ensuring that cycling facilities are not 'just paint' but genuinely safe public spaces.

He also called for rewriting national street design codes, many of which lock countries into car-centric defaults:

'If we keep designing streets for cars, we will keep getting streets dominated by cars. Manuals should follow people, not vehicles.'

Opening Plenary #POLIS25 — Credits: MichielTon.com

Throughout his address, Johnson challenged the narrative that active mobility competes with powerful traditional industries. Construction jobs, he noted, come not only from highways but also from greenways, sidewalks, and protected lanes; mobility companies across the world are already investing in e-bikes and multimodal services; and public opinion increasingly favours safer, cleaner streets. The goal is not to be 'anti-car', he said, but to expand people’s choices.

Johnson also emphasised the importance of incorporating rural and peri-urban regions, where cycling and walking—supported by e-bikes, greenways, school-route safety programmes, and integration with local buses and trains—can significantly expand mobility options.

Private companies, too, have a role to play, particularly through bike-share systems, transit-oriented real estate development, and workplace incentives. The objective, he said, is a seamless chain of walking, cycling, and public transport that allows people to leave their cars at home even for longer trips.

Ultimately, Johnson argued, the real measure of success is not only emissions avoided or kilometres cycled, but joy. Happy cities—where walking down a boulevard or cycling along a canal creates moments of delight—deliver stronger mental health, greater social cohesion, and an attractive environment for businesses and families.

He concluded:

'People remember how a street made them feel. If mobility infrastructure does not lift our mood, then it is not doing its job'.

A panel that put health, equity, and evidence centre stage

Following the keynote, moderator and POLIS Secretary General Karen Vancluysen welcomed a diverse panel featuring:

• Francesca Racioppi, WHO European Centre for Environment & Health
• Anne Staufer, Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL)
• Christian Horemans, Union Nationale de Mutualités Libres
• Raoul Schmidt-Lamontain, Deputy Mayor of Heidelberg
• Senna Maatoug, Deputy Mayor of Utrecht

Opening Plenary panel at #POLIS25 — Credits: MichielTon.com

The discussion began with Racioppi, who stressed that transport is a health intervention, whether we acknowledge it or not.

'We have decades of data showing the health benefits of active mobility: the challenge is transforming that knowledge into everyday decision-making'.

Francesca Racioppi — Credits: MichielTon.com

She described how cities often overlook the simple fact that the most powerful health policies may not resemble health policies at all. A protected cycle lane, she argued, has as much influence on cardiovascular disease as many medical interventions. Moreover, Racioppi urged cities to treat health metrics as core performance indicators, not add-ons, and warned that ignoring them means 'designing future diseases into our streets'.

Picking up the thread, Staufer underscored the urgency of political courage.

'If we want healthier cities, we must stop treating air pollution and road danger as the price we pay for mobility. They are preventable.'

Anne Staufer — Credits: MichielTon.com

Staufer argued that environmental health is often treated as a secondary benefit instead of a central objective. She pointed to cities where bold policies, such as low-emission zones, reduced speed limits, and reallocated road space, have measurable effects on respiratory health, stress, and even educational performance.

From the healthcare perspective, Horemans brought the financial lens sharply into focus. With calm precision, he explained how insurance data reveals the true cost of car-centric systems:

'When people move more, insurers see fewer chronic diseases. Prevention through mobility is not a luxury—it is a financial necessity.'

Christian Horemans and Raoul Schmidt-Lamontain — Credits: MichielTon.com

He noted that in Belgian cities where low-emission zones were introduced, improvements were greatest in low-income neighbourhoods, where residents disproportionately suffer from poor air quality.
Horemans warned that failing to invest in healthier mobility today simply shifts the cost onto future healthcare budgets.

The discussion turned practical with Schmidt-Lamontain, who shared Heidelberg's child-friendly planning model—based on systematically testing streets from the perspective of a child to identify risks that adults often miss:

'If a street works for a child, it works for everyone. That is our test.'

He described audits covering thousands of individual danger points, and schools engaged directly in mapping unsafe routes. Perhaps most striking was his insistence that children are not an exception to plan for—they are the baseline, and designing for them, he argued, naturally creates streets that work better for people of all ages and abilities.

Senna Maatoug — Credits: MichielTon.com

Closing the circle, Maatoug brought the conversation back to community trust. Echoing her interactive opening earlier in the plenary, she stressed that successful mobility policies depend not only on technical excellence but also on how residents experience change.

'People do not reject change: they reject not being heard. When we design mobility with residents, not for them, support follows.'

She highlighted Utrecht’s co-creation processes, participatory design workshops, and neighbourhood-level pilots that allow residents to shape solutions before they are implemented. Moreover, Maatoug reminded the room that evidence alone is not enough: people must see themselves reflected in the decisions.

Together, the panel illustrated a coherent story: evidence, public engagement, and cross-sector collaboration can turn data and policy into meaningful, inclusive, and healthier urban mobility systems. From Utrecht’s community-centred planning and Heidelberg’s child-focused interventions, to the WHO’s global health frameworks, the panel made a compelling case that health and mobility are inseparable.

So... What’s on the (Mobility) Menu?

As part of the Opening Plenary, POLIS launched the seventh volume of its biannual magazine, Cities in motion, now available in both flipbook and PDF formats.

This edition explores urban mobility as a menu: a curated set of choices where every city combines essential staples and innovative 'dishes' to nourish healthy, sustainable, and fair mobility systems.

It features 19 articles and interviews—including pieces on Catalonia’s interurban strategies, Hasselt's mobility approach, Örebro’s parking reforms, and Helmond’s citizen-driven experimentation. Interviews with Sam Johnson, Jan Peter Balkenende, Senna Maatoug, and others provide insight into the political, social, and health dimensions shaping mobility today.

All about Day 2

Looking ahead, Day 2 will continue to explore how cities can design mobility that keeps communities healthy and thriving, with more sessions to come and a Closing Plenary that will bring together voices from across sectors to reflect on what it takes to turn evidence, ambition, and creativity into shared progress.