SUSTRANS – Green Mazovia about energy efficiency

On 15th May 2012 under the project SUSTRANS Green Mazovia organized a meeting on energy efficiency in Polish transport policy. The meeting was attended by representatives of two ministries: transport and environment, city hall: public transport authority, traffic and transport office, environmental protection office and NGOs.

On the meeting main obstacles and possibilities to work towards the following energy efficient solutions were identified:

– Changes in the system of on street paid parking zones;

– Introduction of low transport emission zones;

– Introduction of traffic calming zones;

Guests of the meeting agreed that the main obstacle is caused by the insufficient national law regulations
In the system of on street paid parking zones national law sets too low price limit for one hour of parking. It would be also fruitful to extend the limit of hours and days when paid parking can be applied. Local administration should have more possibilities to adapt rules in parking zones to their needs.

Concerning low transport emission zones it is important to bring into the law legal ground for creation of such zones. It would be also necessary to improve the system of technical control of vehicles.

Concerning traffic calming zones there is a need to make technical rules of road building less restrictive or introduce ministerial guidelines for creation of traffic calming zones. The only legal traffic calming device is traffic bump while it is not the only device that could be used.

Practical results of the meeting:

– Direct discussion with the ministry of transport about paid parking problems;

– Idea of a letter to Polish city administrations with a plea to support proposed solution of paid parking problems;

– Recommendations concerning low transport emission zones and traffic calming are going to be introduced on the meeting of General Directorate for Environmental Protection working group “Air protection and energy”.

Project SUSTRANS is a partnership effort of: Energiaklub (hungary), Centrum pro Dopravu a Energetiku (Czech), Žilinská univerzita v Žiline (Slovakia) and Zielone Mazowsze (Poland). Project is financed by International Vysehrad Fund (IVF).

Internet page of the project:
www.sustrans.eu