News from the Commission on Transportation

Since 21 October 2005 the Commission on Transportation has been chaired by Mr Marcin Wo³ek from Gdynia and the chairmanship has been shared with Örebro, Carinne Lancereau being the Deputy Chairperson. The new leadership decided to continue to pursue the main goals set by Traffic and Public Authority of the City of Göteborg leading the Commission in 2001-2005, which are: public transport, transport conditions for cyclists and pedestrians, mobility management, sustainable transport habits. The Commission is interested in developing different transnational projects. Under the Swedish chairmanship, the Commission together with the Commission on Environment (leader) was successful with the application for BUSTRIP project (Baltic Urban Sustainable Transport and Implementation Planning) the aim of which is to develop and improve Sustainable Urban Transport Plans in the partner cities as well as to start implementation of pilot project. The Commission is a member of project's steering group. A peer review method is used to develop transport plans. Between 3 and 7 April 2006 the first peer review took place in Gdynia. Experts from cities in the BSR came to this city to hold talks with city's representatives in order to verify the directions of transport policy pursued by Gdynia.

In addition to continuing the cooperation within BUSTRIP project, the Commission intends to launch new projects that will be financed by INTERREG III B, available from 2007.

At the end of September 2006 the Commission plans to organise the Annual Meeting along with a seminar entitled "Integration of Transport Systems in the Baltic Europe". The meeting and the seminar are meant to be combined with an international economic forum taking part in Gdynia each year. In order to learn the opinions of member cities and to find out what projects they are interested in, the Commission has sent out a questionnaire. On the basis of the results gathered the Commission on Transportation will be able to better plan future actions.