DCE joins THE PEP Meetings and Tours in The Hague and Utrecht

On the 24^th and 25^th of January, the Dutch Cycling Embassy joined the Transport, Health and Environment Pan-European Programme (THE PEP) Partnership on Active Mobility and the Partnership on Sustainable Tourism Mobility in The Hague and Utrecht, co-led by Austria and France, with hosts from the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. The focus of the meetings was to learn about the difficulties experts and policymakers face when encouraging and advancing policies for walking and cycling, and to discuss how to overcome these challenges.

Tuesday 24^th in The Hague:

The DCE assisted the PEP visit during their walkshop and cycling tour through the city to experience the Dutch transport and cycling infrastructure first-hand. The tours focused on the Dutch past, present and future approaches to cycling by showing how the city has changed over time for cyclists. Some of the focus points of the tour included observing the multimodality, first- and last mile solutions (including the OV fiets) and bicycle parking. The multi-cultured groups followed their tour guides, Rinse Gorter, Rina Adriani and Lilian Oskamp from the Municipality of the Hague.

They first went through the Grote Marktstraat to see what a heavily used pedestrian and cycle street looks like. The group was then impressed by the modern tramtunnel and the accessibility this provided to the rest of the city. Later observing the school and 30kph streets for safety and cycle flow, helped the group understand how different road materials such as brick help identify the different types of streets.

Continuing through the city, the group was astonished by the functionality of the city center bike parking facilities and how people could easily and safely store their bikes for the day. What caught the group’s attention the most was the Hague’s central station bike parking facility with the OV fiets system. Members of the group commented on how advanced the Dutch are with their cycling culture and how inspirational these advances are for their countries.

Wednesday 25^th in Utrecht:

In Utrecht the DCE joined for a session about competence centers: capacity-building for active mobility, together with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. The session consisted of a conversation with the delegates of the PEP visit focused on among others:

• Importance of investing in Capacity Bridging trainings
• Capacity Bridging trainings as a prerequisite for successful implementation
• Launch of the call to action to support training of 10.000 active mobility professionals at COP27
• Insights and lessons learned by the DCE during ThinkBike workshops

Questions raised by the delegates focused among others on the inclusion of walking as an active mode as part of the Call to Action and ThinkBike workshops, the main take-aways from the DCE based on their years of experience and common ambitions for COP28. The conversation continued during a pleasant networking lunch.