Living Streets

Currently, streets constitute about 20 to 30 per cent of any metropolitan area. While they gradually became designated to cars, streets should rather be perceived as municipalities’ essential social and economic hubs, where people come together to form a living community. Living Streets realized the vision of an environment where streets are for people, not for cars. By doing so, the project also highlighted shortcomings of traditional urban planning policies, where mobility policies are centered around cars, streets are designed in hierarchical top-to-bottom processes that disregard citizens’ experience, and individual planning departments do not cooperate with each other. Importantly, by creating a space where citizens can articulate their opinion on projects, Living Streets also filled a capacity gap that has been noted to be prevalent in all 3 target countries: local authorities have neither the know-how nor the tools to engage citizens in planning and decision-making. The lessons learnt are fed into new municipal policies on how to facilitate local bottom-up initiatives in urban planning and sustainable mobility.

“Living Streets” followed a twofold goal: first, to enable networks and cities on citizen engagement in climate and energy issues, connecting actors from Greece, Croatia, and Portugal. Second, to impact local spatial planning and mobility policies through feedback gathered from citizens at “living streets” sites: selected streets that are closed to motorized traffic for certain time periods over 1-2 months, where citizens can try-out a car-free lifestyle and be in touch with local climate and energy projects.

Cyclist on street in city center; photo: unsplash.com/Cosmin Serban

In total, Living Streets were organized in 8 new cities in 3 countries: Corinth (Greece), Elliniko-Argyrou-poli (Greece), Faro (Portugal), Križevci (Croatia), Labin (Croatia); Óbidos (Portugal), Poreč (Croatia) and Torres Vedras (Portugal). The establishment of these Living Streets involved several municipal authorities as well as residents and local associations. The co-design aspect of Living Streets was new to several of these communities.

Living Streets also prompted communities to rethink urban planning and mobility, as well as social cohesion. These 8 examples were presented to a wider audience in national webinars or workshops and in a final workshop held in Faro in November 2021. All of these 8 municipalities are planning the second edition of their Living Streets.

Changes in urban planning: The "Living Streets" concept was implemented in several cities, including Óbidos, Faro and Torres Vedras. Citizens' ideas led to lasting changes in urban planning. Traffic-calmed zones, bicycle parking and more green spaces were integrated into the cities' mobility and climate plans.

Continuation: 25 mayors declared their intention to continue "Living Streets" after the project's conclusion and to institutionalise the new consultation processes.