Political Meeting
On the 5th and 6th of June, 2006, the Mayors of the cities of Genoa, Burgos, Kraków and Stuttgart, as the political leaders of the CIVITAS CARAVEL Project, have met in Kraków in order sign the CIVITAS CARAVEL Accord 2006 “Creating Consensus for Clean Access”.
The four CIVITAS CARAVELpolitical representatives agreed that their cities require strong and innovative policies in order to meet the challenge of sustainable development. While the cities must remain accessible to all the citizens there is a need to balance the desire for unlimited personal mobility with the fundamental needs of society, especially health and well-being of all citizens, a sustainable economy, and respect for the own cultural heritage; resulting in the need to promote life styles helping to protect the scarce natural resources. Therefore, they will promote in their cities a common programme of actions:Establishing a dialogue with citizens, businesses, and other major groups about their visions for creating a healthy city for all citizens - also as a means to generate wide public support for our innovative political concepts.Convincing citizens that a switch to a less car-dependent and more resource-saving life style is an enriching experience and will be beneficial for the generations to follow.Supporting the possibilities of using economic instruments increasingly, especially in the city centres, such as parking fees and other pricing instruments aiming to reduce congestion and pollution, which are caused by an unreasonable and inefficient use of cars, to preserve historical city centres and to improve the living standards for business and citizens.Allocating such generated revenues to support better access for all social groups to places of service, work and learning by clean, safe and efficient transport.Creating incentives for a vital inner-city economic development based on well-coordinated freight delivery by clean vehicles, giving priority to less car-dependent production modes and supporting mobility management of workplaces.Concluding voluntary agreements or contracts between the major stakeholders in the cities with an agreed action programme for achieving an attractive and healthy city.
