Izmir Metropolitan Municipality’s vision of sustainable and green transportation has caught the attention of Europe. The Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan to be prepared by the Metropolitan Metropolitan Municipality has been awarded a grant of nearly €3 million from the European Union’s (EU) Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) program. As a first step in the process, EU experts came to the city and provided SUMP training to the staff who will work on the plan preparation.
In 2018, the European Union launched a call for proposals through the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, and many local governments from Turkey participated with their draft projects. As a result of the evaluation, only the project titled “Technical assistance for the development of a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) and training and capacity building for planning staff” prepared by Izmir Metropolitan Municipality was awarded a grant of 3 million 199 thousand 845 Euros from the EU.
As the first step of the work, the “SUMP Izmir Workshop” was organized at the Urla Köstem Olive Oil Museum. The three-day workshop, organized by the Delegation of the European Union to Turkey and the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Department of Transport, was attended by Mert Yaygel, Head of the Department of Transport, Mr. Erhan, General Manager of ESHOT, Arda Şekercioğlu, General Manager of IZULAŞ A.Ş., Mr. Sönmez Alev, General Manager of Izmir Metro A.Ş., Mr. İlyas Murtezaoğlu, General Manager of IZDENİZ and technical staff who will work on the plan. EU SUMP Expert Kristiana Chakarova and EU Delegation to Turkey Transport Sector Manager Göktuğ Kara provided information on the essence, principles, phases and contribution of SUMP to cities.
The first and only in Turkey
Eser Atak, Deputy Secretary General of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, emphasized that Izmir is one of the few important cities in Turkey to prepare a SUMP project and the first and only city to receive support from the EU: “In the recent past, most cities were dominated by transportation approaches based on fossil fuels and automobile traffic. This approach has resulted in worsening air quality, the occupation of the city by cars, increased fatal and injury accidents, traffic congestion, noise, restricted pedestrian, cyclist and disabled mobility, and undermined social equity. SUMP, which aims to prevent all these negativities, to produce an alternative to the automobile-dependent urban development and transportation model, and to enable economic and environmental sustainability, has been adopted in many European cities and has replaced transportation master plans. In the simplest terms, SUMP can be defined as ‘an innovative, strategic transportation master plan’. It is a strategic plan designed to meet the mobility needs of people and businesses in cities and their surroundings towards a better quality of life.”
‘People’ oriented planning
Emphasizing that Izmir’s already existing vision of integrated public transport, cycling and pedestrian transportation overlaps with the SUMP project, Atak said, “Izmir Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP Izmir) will be prepared in two years. The work will be financed by a grant from the EU. The main objective of our plan is to develop a socially, environmentally and economically sustainable ‘Izmir Transportation Vision’… At its core are the principles of reducing individual car use, increasing public transport, bicycle and pedestrian access, developing shared micro-mobility opportunities, and creating a people-oriented city center, not a vehicle-oriented city center. The process also takes into account the principles of integration, participation and evaluation.”
