On May 17th, IURC Latin America held its webinar #15 “15-minutes city: promoting sustainable mobility in Umea (Sweden) and Valencia (Spain)”. The webinar sought to explore the 15-minutes city model of planning, regarding its practical application and replicability and discussed case studies to illustrate its contribution to increasing accessibility to urban life and promoting active and sustainable mobility patterns.
The webinar presented two international experiences: Umea (Sweden) and Valencia (Spain). The first one was presented by Lucas Röhlinger, who shared insights on Umea’s model of “5km city”. It promotes higher densities in 5-km perimeters around urban centralities to improve quality of life and enable the creation of mixed-uses neighbourhoods where services can be easily accesed through active mobility. Urban development is also concentrated around public transportation corridors and accompanied by integral street design, parking management strategies, and greening interventions, that go in line with Umea’s goal to achieve 65% of trips using sustainable mobility modes by 2025.
The second case was presented by David Moncholí, who shared information about Valencia’s impressive transformation through the prioritisation of pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. In the small and dense urban area, 68% of all trips are made using sustainable mobility modes. The transition provided challenges linked to citizen’s acceptation and regarding connectivity with the growing metropolitan area, however, it allowed to reach higher levels of economic development and quality of life.
Participants from 19 cities and 10 countries joined the webinar.
Watch or rewatch the webinar here