SUMP Izmir is a strategic and comprehensive planning tool for Izmir Metropolitan Municipality‘s urban mobility goals with a focus on sustainability. The tool is being developed in a participatory manner and includes a baseline, long-term vision, clear goals and objectives, future scenarios, effective packages of measures and actions; and budget, financing options; and monitoring strategies for sustainable urban mobility in Izmir Metropolitan Municipality.
The plan will set out guidelines and measurable targets for mobility and traffic development in Izmir until 2040. Furthermore, it will identify concrete measures to achieve these targets in various fields of activity (e.g. cycling, public transport, parking, traffic safety, etc.). The most important feature of SUMP Izmir is that all modes of transport (pedestrian and bicycle traffic, public transport, vehicular traffic, rail) and all other mobility-related issues (traffic safety, urban development, climate change, air pollution) – such as environmentally friendly vehicles, new forms of mobility and opportunities for digital transformation – are considered as a whole.
Why SUMP Matters?
Izmir’s strategic commercial structure makes it one of the most prosperous cities in the country. However, this situation leads to various transportation-related matters throughout the city and in the functional urban area. The second largest source of emissions in the city (around 23.1% of total emissions) is the transportation sector.
The 8 Principles of Sustainable Urban Planning
With the largest port in the Aegean Region, Izmir is known as one of Turkey’s most prosperous cities thanks to its strategic location at the crossroads of maritime trade routes between Europe, the Middle East and Asia. It is also one of the most important nodes in the country, with road, rail or air connections to all other major cities in the country. As a growing city, Izmir faces problems such as traffic congestion, increased commute times, lack of parking spaces, insufficient public transportation, incomplete infrastructure for bicycle traffic, increased environmental pollution and energy consumption. It has become inevitable for Izmir to address these issues and promote sustainable and people-centered development in the light of Turkey’s national strategies/targets. The key topic here is how to identify a green mobility development pathway that is appropriate for Izmir’s urban structure.
Rather than being created as a new and different plan, SUMP Izmir will build on existing planning practices and policies and will pursue the principles of integration, participation and continuous monitoring.