About the SUMP in Aix Marseille Provence Metropole
Edited on
02 May 2017The Metropole of Aix Marseille Provence has considered that the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan has to be developed in cooperation across different policy areas and sectors, across different levels of administration (regional, metropolitan, local level) and in cooperation with citizens and other stakeholders.
Therefore, in addition to the specifics studies launched on the South Est territory of the Metropole, such as the public transport organization, the road classification and bicycle lane, our Local Mobility Plan (LMP) will include two others studies lead by our stakeholders.
1) The soft lane in La Ciotat City:
The soft lane in “la Ciotat” is an old railway track converted into a pedestrian and cycling area. This old track was used to connect the former shipyard inside the city to the railway station located outside. The project has been divided into two parts. The first part has already been achieved. The studies regarding the second part are actually conducted by the city of “la Ciotat”.
The goal of this project is to connect the city center to the railway station by creating a real backbone of soft mode. In the meantime, the railway station will be transformed in a multimodal hub that will service several modes of transportation. It will offer of course soft modes of transport in order to attract people living in disadvantaged districts and allowing them to commute toward activities area.
The study of the second part reveals also different specific topics. Next to connecting to the station by soft modes, another part is to analyze what could be done with the streambeds that run dry most of time: a key idea is to pedestrianize the streambeds which cross the soft lane – making them accessible for walking during the time they are dry and thus increasing the area’s attractiveness. Right now, a work group has been set up including storm water management engineers to find accurate solutions to re-used banks.
2) Access scheme to the National Park
The access scheme to the Calanques National Park is made under the management of the National Park. However the leader of the Local Mobility Plan is closely associated to this work: the first step of this study is about the access to the Park from Cassis and La Ciotat.
Many concertation workshops have been set up with numerous stakeholders such as inhabitants, workers, shopkeepers, association (walkers, climbers…) and technical staff. At this occasion, tools such as OPERA taken home from the URBACT Summer University were applied to bring out the main problems and to define some possible solutions and actions.
Specifically beneficial was the employment of an external facilitator resulting in a good focus on the target and a calm discussion and working set-up.
Submitted by Olaf Lewald on