EUROPEAN CAR FREE DAY 2000 IN – FIRST EXPERIENCES FROM A NATIONAL CO-ORDINATOR

Willy Raimund, E.V.A. The Austrian Energy Agency, Austria

1 INTRODUCTION

The paper describes the way that was taken to motivate Austrian municipalities and regions to participate in the European Car Free Day (ECFD) on September 22nd 2000. Awareness raising is the topic in this motivation process but also the main topic of the day itself: people should be made aware of the advantages of “soft”, sustainable transport modes (public transport, cycling, walking, alternative powered vehicles). When trying to convince municipalities to participate, awareness has to be raised among decision makers, whereas on the day itself awareness for sustainable transport modes should be raised among normal citizens.

When these proceedings were published, only very few cities or towns had already started to organise the day in their municipality. Nevertheless most of Austria’s bigger cities and a respectable number of other towns and smaller municipalities had already agreed on participating in the day or at least considered a participation.

2 THE PROJECT

Task and objective of the project is to motivate and activate municipalities in Austria (especially cities and towns, but also smaller municipalities) to take part in the European Car Free Day 2000.

The European Car Free Day fits into an approach in favour of town recovery: it must consist of action that strongly enhances public awareness with a view to encouraging the development of behaviour patterns that are compatible with improved urban mobility. It must also allow European city dwellers to rediscover their town and its heritage in a more serene environment.

In addition to that each participating municipality can create its own tailored package of measures depending on regional specifics (e.g. alternative powered vehicles, events on mobility, testing of new cycle paths or pedestrian areas etc.).

The European Car Free Day will bring about an awareness effect among both participating and non-participating municipalities. The former will be strengthened in leading their way and will get national and international attention. The latter will be activated to implement similar measures or to participate in the day in the coming years. Demonstration projects and innovative actions presented on the European Car Free Day will be brought closer to realisation and implementation.

Experiences from France and Italy show, that this day also leads to significant decreases in emission levels of pollutants in the car free areas. But most important is the awareness raising process caused by the day, showing the advantages of sustainable transport modes. In the ideal case this leads to modal switches from the car to more environmentally friendly modes of transport.

3 THE TASKS

E.V.A., the Austrian Energy Agency has taken over the function of a national co-ordinator mediating between the European core- group of the LIFE-project “In town without my car!”, the national ministries and the (potential) participating municipalities in Austria. The project includes three work packages:

3.1 Preparation • Co-ordination of activities with European LIFE-project partners • Harmonisation and clarification of participation criteria • Adaptation of European material to Austrian circumstances and dissemination • Participation in meetings

3.2 Activation and “Consulting • Activation of municipalities by different means (mailings, individual contacts, press, etc.) • Consulting for potential participants (e.g. information day, meetings, etc.) • Public awareness raising work (mainly “internal”, i.e. articles in topic-related media, final report for national and European level) • Mediator between European, national and local level

3.3 Assessment • Documentation of the process, the Car Free day itself and the main results • Participation in a follow-up conference of the ECFD 2000 • Follow-up meeting with Austrian players and motivation for ECFD 2001 • Dissemination via media • Preparation of main contents and results for the internet: Homepages of E.V.A., the Austrian Energy Agency, the national ministries and Austrian contributions to the international project-website (www.22september.org)

All the tasks will be carried out in close co-operation with the European Co-ordination office of Climate Alliance/Klima-Buendnis, which within the LIFE Project is responsible for the activities and national co-ordinators in Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria.

4 INTERNATIONAL BACKGROUND

During the 90s, an increasing number of local initiatives ("Don’t choke Britain" in the United Kingdom, "Mobil ohne Auto" in Germany, "Auto reflexio" in Catalonia, La Rochelle, Reykjavik, Heidelberg, Bologne, etc.) successfully provided European citizens with the opportunity to think about a form of urban mobility that is more respectful of the environment. All these operations have met with significant approval by the population with a satisfaction level of over 80%.

In 1998 thirty-five French towns answered the call of the French Ministry of Land Planning and the Environment and organised the first "In town, without my car!" day on 22 September 1998. The day was strongly supported by city dwellers.

On Wednesday 22 September 1999, 66 French towns (in other words almost twice as many as in 1998) and also 92 Italian towns in addition to the canton of Geneva, all took part in the first European edition of the "In town, without my car!" day. All these towns limited traffic in certain areas where only public transport, cleaner vehicles, bikes and of course, pedestrians were granted access.

Many inhabitants who came into town on this day to make the most of the ban on vehicular traffic particularly appreciated the friendly tone of the day, the lack of stress, the reduced noise level and the improvement in the quality of the air. An opinion survey carried out with the help of the inhabitants of the partner towns reveals a high level of approval towards the operation since 85% of the people questioned in France and Italy consider this operation as a good or very good idea. Furthermore, 85% of French and Italian city dwellers are in favour of renewing the operation; 50% of them are even in favour of a similar operation once a week. Finally, 96% of residents in reserved areas said that they were not disturbed by the operation.

The "In town, without my car!" day did not have any particular economic impact for companies and public services in the towns concerned. The number of people in the shops was stable. As far as shopkeepers were concerned, the Italian survey informs us that 56% of them indeed considered the "In town, without my car!" operation as a positive initiative and 54% were even in favour of a total banning of cars from historical centres or a repetition of the operation.

As in 1998, the drop in the noise level was the factor that the inhabitants of the participating towns noticed most. In the reserved areas, the average drop was measured at 6 decibels compared with a day of normal traffic, which corresponds to a reduction of over 50% in the noise level.

In areas where circulation was regulated, pollution directly linked to automobile traffic dropped considerably: between –20 and –50% depending on the pollutants and the towns. On the other hand, the duration of the operation (a day) is not sufficient to record significant results for all the areas covered by the towns taking part.

The success of such an operation on a European scale involves the mobilisation of as many countries and towns as possible and also requires homogeneous tools to be set up. This is the reason why, in each member State, national partners will play a federative role and guarantee both the consistency of the political message, the definition of a common methodology, the organisation of communication nation-wide and for each town, the dissemination to all partner towns of technical and communication tools developed in liaison with the European project partners.

5 NATIONAL BACKGROUND

Austria has seen some “car free” initiatives and activities in the last years. Mostly these actions had a tourist background, e.g. “Car Free Cycling Days” alongside lakes or rivers. Thus it was not so much the environmental background that counted but the aim to get more tourists in the area and to have a long-term marketing effect. Due to fixed dates it is unlikely to integrate these initiatives in the ECFD 2000, but one can think of an integration in 2001. Also some cities had car free days in the past - with varying success.

A historic detail: In times of the first oil-crisis in the mid-seventies the Austrian government introduced a “Car Free Day” (Autofreier Tag), then meaning that every car had a sticker showing the one day in the week were this car was not allowed to be driven. Because of “mixed” remembrances on this day and to avoid any possibility of confusion, the term “car free” is not used in the official Austrian campaign for 2000.

The reason for changing the Austrian title of the ECFD from “In town without my car!” (In die Stadt ohne mein Auto) to “Mobile without my car” (Mobil ohne eigenes Auto!) is simple: there are not too many big cities or towns in Austria and all the smaller – nevertheless important - municipalities would have felt excluded by the “In town without my car!” slogan.

6 STEPS TAKEN

On behalf of the Ministry of Transport, Innovation, E.V.A, the Austrian Energy Agency gave first impulses trying to activate and motivate municipalities to participate. Climate Alliance Austria (Klimabündnis Österreich) is also a contact partner for municipalities who want to participate. Klimabündnis Österreich has quite good contacts especially to smaller towns and will invite its "most promising" member municipalities to participate. Also the Ministry of Environment will support the day.

In co-operation with Klimabündnis Österreich and The Austrian Association of Cities (Österreichischer Städtebund) E.V.A. disseminated mailings to some 650 cities, towns and smaller municipalities. These mailings contained an information brochure, the European Charter (to be signed by the mayors of cities that are willing to participate) and an answering form, in which municipalities could express their interest and request more and detailed information on the day.

The Austrian Energy Agency also contacted the responsible decision makers of the cities in Austria individually. With these Cities as “key-players” or “dynamos” for other municipalities there exists a more intensive form of “consulting”: individual meetings have been held and specific information material has been worked out. Intensive “coaching” of all the participating municipalities is not possible during the whole project (mainly due to time and budget constraints).

Press articles in specialists/technical publications (e.g. newsletters of Association of Municipalities - Gemeindebund, Association of Cities - Städtebund, Climate Alliance – Klimabündnis etc.) and contributions to mailing lists and WebPages helped to disseminate the ECFD to the municipalities.

Generally each municipality is self-responsible for organising and financing its own Car Free Day (often in context of some local events, as e.g. in the city of Salzburg). Municipalities decide on their own which initiatives they stress and which areas they close.

The local government of Land Vorarlberg is co-ordinating the day in the whole "Bundesland". They will use a logo that was successfully used for a big soft mobility campaign some years ago, next to the "European logo". This will insure higher acceptance among municipalities and citizens.

The transport ministry also plans to carry out women-specific actions on sustainable mobility in one bigger, middle-sized and smaller town. The background is that women especially depend on public transport and other modes of soft mobility. This should be made clear on that day, especially to decision makers and planners, who are men mostly.

7 COMMENT AND CONCLUSION

As of March 2000, there are quite some towns who will and want to participate (see the list below). The first “European Charters” have been signed by city mayors. But especially some bigger cities opt for having the "main action" on Saturday or Sunday. On Friday closed areas that big would lead to an enormous protest from commuters and would be contra-productive. All of them will start on Friday, but some of them will have their main action on the weekend.

Awareness raising actions such as the car free day should not be contra-productive and raise a lot of anger among citizens but offer an invitation to people to try soft modes of transport in a relaxed atmosphere and maybe change their transport patterns towards these sustainable modes. It is useful to have considerable big areas that are closed on the weekend, than a small "alibi-solution" on Friday only.

Fig.: List of Austrian municipalities interested in participating in the ECFD 2000 (as of March 2000)

Municipality status quo

Salzburg very positive climate, concrete plans what to do, verbal agreement on participation

Klagenfurt verbal agreement on participation

Steyr signed charter

Vienna very interested; verbal agreement on participation

Graz very positive climate, check which body could do what; participation very likely

Linz interested, check if they should participate

Land Vorarlberg local government co-ordinates; participation of 20-30 cities/smaller towns very likely

Wels very interested; check if to participate

Judenburg participation very likely

Villach very interested; check if to participate

Langenlois verbal agreement on participation

Werfenweng verbal agreement on participation

Bad Hofgastein participation very likely

“IG Sanfte plan common action; participation very Mobilität” likely (some 10 tourism municipalities)