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Vicenza began drafting its Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (PUMS) during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019. The alternating phases of social distancing measures influenced the drafting process and required adjustments to some activities. However, the pandemic experience certainly contributed to a greater awareness of the need for shared changes in urban mobility models to reclaim the time, space, and opportunities for social and economic interactions inherent in city life, which are often forgotten or marginalized in the daily quest for efficient travel solutions.
Another aspect that characterizes Vicenza’s PUMS, in full harmony with the European ELTIS Guidelines for drafting PUMS, is the nature of the PUMS itself. It is not conceived as “just another plan,” but rather it must understand and integrate with existing tools, enhancing the principles of integration, participation, evaluation, and monitoring (see page 8 of the ELTIS Guidelines 2014).
The reconstruction of the knowledge framework highlighted the rich and articulated heritage of interventions at various planning scales in the mobility sector that are already funded and present in the municipality of Vicenza. Through the PUMS, the primary aim was to understand what transformation trends in the use of the multimodal mobility offer these projects, considered both individually and collectively, will trigger. Subsequently, integrative interventions were identified and calibrated to enhance the already planned interventions, mitigating any potential undesirable effects and maximizing their benefits.
The participatory process, which saw great participation despite the difficulties imposed by the pandemic, enriched the Plan’s scenario with contributions on both general and specific aspects. These contributions are expected to help build an informed and aware consensus among the population as the Plan’s actions are implemented.
A final mention should be made of the PUMS’s projection towards some broader area themes, recognizing that Vicenza’s position and role, beyond the dictates of the Guidelines, would deserve a metropolitan approach. The proposals particularly concern the encouragement of the use of the ring road surrounding Vicenza and part of the first belt municipalities, and the creation of a network of suburban public transport services operated with low-emission vehicles, fully integrated with the urban transport network of the city of Vicenza. These interventions, due to their scope and the public and private entities that need to be involved, constitute proposals to be developed during the PUMS’s validity period. Therefore, the potential benefits resulting from their implementation have not been considered in the PUMS’s budget.
DEFINITION OF STRATEGIES AND LINES OF INTERVENTION
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