What is the Clean Cities Campaign?

The Clean Cities Campaign is a European partnership of civil society organisations that aims to encourage cities to move to zero emission transport by 2030. The campaign promotes green transport solutions for more liveable and sustainable cities. To achieve these goals, it is essential to phase out high emission vehicles from cities as soon as possible.

Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ0H2My4Guw&t=3s

What are the most pressing problems?

Clean air

Road transport is a major source of the air pollution, causing more than 400,000 premature deaths every year in Europe alone. Today's motor vehicles pose a huge risk to the health of people living in cities. Air pollution also clearly contributes to the development of chronic diseases in the human body. There is growing evidence that air pollution makes the population more susceptible to epidemics, including COVID-19.

Climate

We have less than a decade left to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and we need to act now! Even a half degree difference significantly increases the risk of floods, droughts and extreme temperatures. The transport sector is a major culprit in the climate crisis, accounting for around a quarter of all emissions in Europe. If we are serious about tackling climate change, we cannot afford to keep polluting vehicles on the roads.

Liveable cities

Sustainable and accessible transport is a key element in making cities more liveable, healthy and equitable. But this is only possible if the right choices are made. Many effective and widespread solutions exist, but political will is needed to implement them. Transforming public spaces in favour of walking, cycling and green spaces, and investing in public transport and public electric mobility are all ways to create a better urban life in Europe.

Frequently asked questions here: https://cleancitiescampaign.org/faq/

Join the Clean Cities campaign by signing the petition: https://petition.cleancitiescampaign.org/

The projekt ended on the 30 of June.

Our key achievements are:

The topics of the CCC campaign are in the public speech, especially those messages that impact many people (like speed limits). In general, we can state that public opinion is divided (not all welcome the suggestions of CAAG), but it is an important result that people react to our activities. And because the topics are in the public discussion, politicians must pay attention. We have reached some major achievements:

• We organized a very successful “Easy Rider” demonstration with children.
• We widely disseminated a call for implementation of School Streets and two schools participated in the event on 20 October 2022 (outside of Budapest) and May-June 2023. In May 2023, for the first time, primary schools in the capital joined CCC’s Streets for Kids event, organized by CAAG, all together we helped to organised four of these events. Several schools have indicated that they are currently in the process of being implementing school streets and BKK (Budapest Transport Centre) has also welcomed the initiative with open arms. Several presentations were given by CAAG, and we have been cooperating with BKK on the preparation of practical implementation of definitive school streets at several sites in Hungary.
• We have actively participated in the “Green Budapest Working Group” organized by the Budapest Municipality, dealing mainly with transport issues.
• We prepared a 12-page recommendation package (https://www.levego.hu/sites/default/files/Kozossegi_gyulesre_Levego_Munkacsoport_2022.pdf) for the participants of the Budapest Citizens Assembly on Clean Air and Transport and delivered a speech at the event.
• We participated in a series of meetings on the updating of the Budapest SUMP (Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan).

• We took part in the Car Free Day event in the Ferencváros district of Budapest.

We made the following videos:

• Use Cargo Bike in the Holidays,

• Cargo Bike,

• “Easy Rider” demonstration,

• School Street action in Budapest,

• Parcel delivery to a drop-off point is better than to door,

• Green spaces instead of parking spaces!

We put Hungarian subtitles on the following videos:

• CCC video on Low Emission Zones,

• Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can),

• We launched a creative competition in mid-February (What kind of city do you dream of?) for primary school students. Nearly 100 paintings, models and digital art were submitted to the competition. (See Annex)

• We asked all district mayors to make a large part of their district free from car traffic on the European Car-free Day. We received positive reply from two districts.

Some concrete measures by municipalities in connection with our activities:

• Several districts have introduced more traffic calming in certain areas (for example, Districts 5, 8 and 13).

• Cycling has been continued to be promoted by the Budapest Municipality. New cycle lanes have been created.

• Stricter parking regulations have been introduced in several districts (For example, District 8 has eliminated free parking for residents and introduced relatively high parking fees for them.)

• An agreement was reached on traffic calming of the Danube embarkment promoted by CAAG

• Together with other civil society organisations we managed to keep car traffic off from the newly renovated Chain Bridge for good.

• Following the handover of the entire section of the M3 metro line CAAG asked the Municipality of Budapest to do not return the temporary bus lanes to car traffic. The initiative was successful, moreover the Municipality developed a concept (Reviving Routes 2030) to green car lanes and make the streets concerned more pedestrian and cycling-friendly.

• The Municipality of Budapest sent out a residential questionnaire (Budapest Residents Assembly) between mid-May and June about the car-free Chain Bridge. CAAG and other 20 NGOs have launched a campaign (Új Lánchíd) to raise awareness of the importance of a car-free Chain Bridge and to encourage people to fill in a questionnaire. 80% of respondents wanted a car-free bridge even after renovation.