European Mobility Week in Rīga
From 16 to 22 September, the European Mobility Week took place across Europe under the slogan “Save Energy”, encouraging people to choose environmentally friendlier means of transportation.
This year, Rīga organized various thematic events and discussions to draw attention to public transport, electric vehicles, cycling infrastructure and technologies that can improve the urban environment.
On September 18, public discussion “Does Rīga need a low-emissions zone?” took place, inviting experts from the Ministry of Climate and Energy, Riga City Council’s City Development Department, Riga City Council’s Housing and Environment Department, DPD Latvia and NGO City for People to discuss whether, by introducing low-emission zones, Rīga will be able to achieve the set climate goals.
On September 19, together with Baltic Sustainable Mobility Alliance, Latvian Automobile Association, Latvian Electric Vehicle Association, and private automotive businesses the discussion on addressing key e-mobility challenges, notably the role of zero-emission vehicles was discussed.
On September 20, press conference was held in which the Chairman of the Riga City Council Vilnis Ķirsis, the Chairman of the Traffic and Transport Committee Olafs Pulks and the Chairman of the board of “Rīgas satiksme” Džineta Innusa informed about the things that have already been done and future plans to improve the network and user experience of public transport.
On September 21, attention was devoted to cycling infrastructure. Rīga in cooperation with the Dutch Embassy in Latvia invited cycling experts from the Netherlands (Dutch Cycling Embassy, City of Amsterdam and Roelof) to discuss the development of cycling culture and safety in Rīga. Afterwards a public discussion took place together with experts from the Riga Technical University, the Directorate of Road Traffic Safety and the “Safe Streets” society.
At the end of the European Mobility Week in Rīga, on September 22, the innovation movement VEFRESH in cooperation with Rīga and representatives of the private sector Аccenture and “Latvijas Mobilais Telefons” organized a discussion “Real-time city data: when and how real?”, addressing the challenge of how to improve the quality of life in cities using urban monitoring technologies, as well as urban data management and privacy policy issues. Experts from Rīga Digital Agency, Bolt, Tet, and Higher Education and Science IT Shared Service Centre participated in the panel.
To promote the use of public transport while reducing traffic intensity and environmental and air pollution in the city, everyone had the opportunity to use Rīga public transport for free on September 22.