For two decades, Ljubljana has been organising its part of the European Mobility Week (EMW), the European Commission’s awareness-raising campaign promoting clean and sustainable urban transport. The largest campaign of the kind in the world, comes to town and cities across Europe and beyond every year between 16 and 22 September.
This year too, the Ljubljana’s EMW was organised in partnership between public companies, institutes of the City of Ljubljana, district communities and many other organisations, among them also primary schools and kindergartens. Ljubljana, as one of the around 3000 towns and cities from approximately 50 countries participated by hosting events on the theme ‘Safe and healthy with sustainable mobility’.
EMW gave residents and visitors to Slovenia’s capital an opportunity to explore the role of mobility in their daily lives by experimenting with clean transport modes. Special attention in Ljubljana was paid to raising awareness of the benefits of walking, cycling, using public transport and other sustainable modes of movement, with the emphasis on active urban mobility and low or zero-emission mobility.
The week was marked through various day-to-day events, weekly activities and ongoing measures and ended with a traditional car-free day when the selected roads around the Municipality were closed for motor traffic. This way, the roads closed for the day joined the Ljubljana’s city centre and Old Town which have been closed for traffic since 2007, and the city’s main boulevard which has been closed for traffic since 2013.
Ljubljana’s engagement and progress in the sustainable mobility has been recognised with the European Mobility award twice, in 2003 and 2013, what makes it the only European city to receive the honour twice.
On 16 October, Ljubljana will host additional event, the EMW 2021: FUTURE ZERO – For An Emissions-free Future. The event will be held at Kongresni Trg Square between 10h and 17h. This traditional and largest Slovenian event in the field of sustainable mobility (EcoMeet – meeting of ecological vehicles) will highlight the importance of the whole cycle without emissions. Hence, the e-mobility, technological and non-technological possibilities of ecologically friendly transport as well as sustainable possibilities of obtaining energy will be presented. EMW 2021: FUTURE ZERO will also provide space for a traditional meeting of fans of ecological vehicles and inlude presentations of ‘transitional’ technologies, such as hybrid vehicles and gas vehicles.
