CIVITAS Cities Showcase Solutions for Safer, Climate-Neutral Streets
Image by ICLEI Europe
On Tuesday, 2 December 2025, four Mission cities from four CIVITAS projects, REALLOCATE, AMIGOS, ELABORATOR, and JUST STREETS, were the focus of a half-day event held by ICLEI Europe under the theme "Safer Streets & Climate-Neutral Cities: Achieving Climate Goals while Ensuring Safety for All". The event was part of ICLEI Europe’s Breakfast at Sustainability’s event series, which happens a few times a year in Brussels, focusing on Europe’s leading, ongoing urban sustainability discussions.
The title of the event conveys the importance of bringing up the road safety aspect when working towards meeting climate goals, such as, in particular, the climate-neutrality objective set by 112 Mission Cities to be attained by 2030. Safety is still not talked about enough in the mobility domain, and the Breakfast at Sustainability’s event was used as an occasion to bring up the topic, exchange knowledge and insights, and contribute to a larger conversation on the importance of safety measures and policies in European cities and urban areas.
This 48th edition of the event was kindly hosted by the Helsinki EU Office, which was a perfect set-up for the discussion, considering Helsinki’s impressive efforts to reach the ‘Vision Zero’ strategy objectives from the European Commission, including having achieved zero road fatalities over a whole year. The office’s Director, Janne Leino, greeted the participants and talked about the value of road safety policies and measures for Finnish cities. The meeting was moderated by Melissa Bruntlett, Director at Modacity Creative, equitable mobility expert and author of books on mobility and equitable planning - ‘Curbing Traffic: The Human Case for Fewer Cars in Our LIves’, ‘Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality’ and the recently published ‘Women Changing Cities: Global Stories of Urban Transformation’. Additionally, Melissa is an External Expert Advisory Board member in the REALLOCATE project.
The event aimed to create an opportunity for projects, cities and experts to exchange experiences on improving street safety in European urban areas. Starting with an introduction to the CIVITAS Initiative by Vannesa Holve and Elma Meskovic-Imsirovic, and followed by keynote speeches by Ellen Townsend from the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) and Katerina Deliali from European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), the participants delved into the context for the event, the relevant activities carried out by CIVITAS and the current focus on street safety among CIVITAS projects and the wider range of projects funded by CINEA, as well as the place of street safety within EU’s strategic goals and the progress (or lack thereof) in road safety among European countries and selected cities.Â
After the introductory part of the meeting, four Mission Cities and their respective projects shared their experiences and presented real-life examples of solutions and strategies for making their streets safer places, as well as relevant challenges and barriers.
These challenges and barriers then set the stage for the second half of the event – an interactive workshop. The cities incorporated their perspectives, success and failure stories into a dialogue with the other participants, including experts from the transport, mobility, road safety, and urban planning domains - ETSC, SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research, International Federation of Pedestrians (IFP), European Cyclists' Federation (ECF), International Road Federation (IRF), European Parking Association, MobiliseYourCity, Factual, Cerema, Ertico, UITP, POLIS Network, Eurocities, and ICLEI Europe - who all brought their unique experiences and areas of expertise to the tables.
