Press releases

MINSK, 3 October (BelTA) – Forty-six Belarusian populated areas took part in the European Mobility Week 2017, BelTA learned from the UNDP News Center.

The results of the European Mobility Week which took place on 16-22 September under the motto “Clean, shared and intelligent mobility. Sharing gets you further” have been summed up. The United Nations Development Program was an information coordinator of the campaign.

According to the UNDP News Center, Belarus officially took part in the European Mobility Week for the third time. The camping is gaining popularity. In 2015, partaking in it were Minsk, Polotsk, and Novopolotsk. There were 19 participants from Belarus in 2017. Forty-six populated areas joined the campaign this year. The European Mobility Week had a record number of participants in 2017: 2,470 towns and villages of 50 countries.

These populated areas hosted public discussions of town mobility, bike rides, and arrangement of bike parking places. There were air noise pollution surveys, joint campaigns with traffic police, contests and concerts. The campaign was crowned by a traditional event, Car-Free Day.

According to experts, the quality of life by one third depends on mobility conditions. This pertains to the current state of the transport system, its reliability, safety for people and environment. Therefore, a systematic approach to the development of towns and regions is so important. This approach relies on the integrated territorial and transport planning. This is the main objective of the project to promote green planning in small and medium-sized towns of Belarus. It is implemented by the United Nations Development Program in association with the Global Environment Facility and the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry.