Framework
Vitoria-Gasteiz is a multicultural and green city in northern Spain. The municipality – which also comprises 63 surrounding villages – is the largest in the Basque Country, with a total area of 276.81 square kilometres and a population of 252.571. Vitoria-Gasteiz is the first Spanish municipality to be awarded the title of European Green Capital (in 2012) and it has been recognized by the UN with the Global Green City Award (in 2019), too.
The Environmental Studies Centre (CEA) is an autonomous entity owned by the Vitoria-Gasteiz City Council: its mission is to foster the city’s sustainable development, as Vitoria-Gasteiz indeed aims to implement the superblock model at the whole city level through vehicle access restrictions and traffic calming measures.
Measure fields in practice
The Sustainable Mobility Plan of Vitoria-Gasteiz establishes a network of main roads along which all motorized vehicles, either public (bus, tram and taxis) or private can circulate. The aim is to disincentive the traffic in the rest of the network by separating the crossing roads from the ones just covered by local traffic in a ‘superblock’ model. As of today – and especially with the new adaptation of the Plan for Sustainable Mobility and Public Space 2020-2030, the ambition of Vitoria-Gasteiz is to create new superblocks with public works and pedestrianisation of streets and to extend a “light” superblock scheme to the rest of the city centre by means of lane reduction, parking removal, street directions changes and contraflow bicycle ways introduction. New access control systems such as those based on video camera surveillance with number plate recognition might be also implemented within ReVeAL.
