.jpeg)
GoodGeist
A podcast on sustainability, hosted by Damla Özlüer and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network. Looking at sustainability issues, communications, and featuring global guests from a wide variety of sectors such as business, NGOs and government.
GoodGeist
How to Move Your City, with Karen Vancluysen
In this episode Karen Vancluysen, Secretary General of Polis Network, takes us on a journey through the evolving landscape of sustainable urban mobility. With over 21 years of experience working with European cities on transport innovation, Karen shares powerful insights on how municipalities are navigating the transition to more sustainable, equitable mobility systems.
En route she powerfully debunks the false dichotomy between economy and ecology, explaining how green growth is not just environmentally necessary but economically essential: "If we don't invest now, the bill will be much bigger later," she says.
We also cover the importance of innovation in policy responses, as well as in technology, and our conversation touches on how cities can overcome polarisation and resistance to change. Karen shares practical strategies for winning hearts and minds, including the power of temporary interventions that let citizens experience car-free spaces before making permanent decisions.
Listen in to hear how cities are reclaiming their streets, reshaping transport systems, and creating more liveable urban environments for all.
Follow GoodGeist for more episodes on sustainability, communications and how creativity can help make the world a better place.
Good Geist, a podcast series on sustainability hosted by Damla Özler and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello everyone. You are listening to Good Ge Guys, the message on sustainability which is brought to you by the DNS Network, the global network of agencies dedicated to making the world a better place. This is Damla from Mira Agency, Istanbul, and.
Speaker 3:This is Steve from Creative Concern in Manchester. This podcast series explores global sustainability issues, how they're communicated and what creativity can do to make positive change happen.
Speaker 2:So in this episode we're going to talk to Karen Van Closen, the Secretary General of Polis Network Cities and Regions for Transport Innovation. Karen was appointed as Secretary General of Polis in September 2014 after having been the network's research director for 10 years A lot of experience here.
Speaker 3:I know a huge amount of experience and before joining Polis, karen worked as a network manager at Access Eurocities, project manager at the Belgian Centre for Mobility Management, been involved in a huge number of European urban transport issues for a number of years, karen, and including research and innovation projects across a whole bunch of urban mobility themes, and you're a speaker and moderator at lots of high-level events. So thank you so much for talking to Tamara and myself.
Speaker 4:My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:It's great to have you with us today, Karen. Let's start with your own journey, though. How did you get involved with the?
Speaker 4:transportation world. Well, I didn't see it coming, to be honest, because my initial background was more in culture and communications and languages. So I kind of ended up in this world by accident when I saw a job opening in the Center for Mobility Management that you were mentioning, steve, based here in my hometown, leuven. It was all about campaigns and education and awareness raising around sustainable urban mobility, and so that more softer side of mobility was also still related to what I had been studying and so on. So I was interested and I was lucky to get the job and that's how I got into the world. And next to working on these campaigns, I also became involved in European funded projects, and that's how I connected with a lot of stakeholders in the European context and how I ended up then at Eurocities and after that at Polis, where I've been now for almost 21 years.
Speaker 3:I know Wow, and I'm a passion. I love Eurocities. By the way, Manchester for many years was a massive player in Eurocities, I know, but Manchester has also been the president of Polis.
Speaker 4:Yeah, oh well, you see. Yeah, we had our annual conference in Manchester at Old Trafford in 2017, or something or 16.
Speaker 3:Amazing. Well, that makes me very proud, karen, very proud indeed. And actually, when it comes to transport and innovation, we've got a huge story to tell. We've got a whole thing called B Network over here, which is our new integrated network, but I don't want to get distracted. This is about you, not Manchester. Our new integrated network. But I don't want to get distracted. This is about you, not Manchester. The Polis network. So it's this leading network of cities and regions working together on sustainable mobility and innovation, and it's quite a complex network and constantly evolving. Give us a bit of an explainer on your work, but also Polis and how it operates.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So basically, if I would have to summarize POLIS in a nutshell, we have a threefold mission. So what we do is offer a platform to our member cities and regions for peer-to-peer exchange, both on the practitioner level and on the political level, so the people rolling out measures every single day on the ground, but also the political leaders deciding on the policies and the way forward. So we cover anything and everything you can think about, basically in the field of sustainable mobility in cities and regions, whether it's active travel or public transport, or digitalization, automation, city logistics, safety and security anything and everything, as I said. So, next to this peer-to-peer exchange, we also have this advocacy activity, as we call it.
Speaker 4:I don't really like the word lobbying, because advocacy sounds more like it's for a good cause, which indeed it is so, being the voice of cities and regions, basically when we talk to the european institutions, but also when we talk to other stakeholders in the ecosystem, industry, research, to make sure that the voice of cities and regions is heard. And then the third part of our mission relates to research and innovation. So we help our members engage in European funded activities, research and innovation projects, together with other stakeholders from the sector, to trial new innovations, to roll out innovative policies, to be testbeds, together with the cities, for new solutions. And so that's Polis, briefly described for you.
Speaker 2:Polis in a nutshell, I think that's the headline. So you know, transportation is not only transportation. I just stole the analogy on football. Football is not only football, but it also refers to mobility of people and the goods, which means it's directly at the heart of development. So how does sustainable mobility balances the need for sustainability and the need for growth?
Speaker 4:the need for growth. Well, I would say that, contrary to popular belief these days, economy and ecology are not enemies. They can really perfectly go hand in hand. We've seen, of course, generally across Europe and beyond, a shift of narrative from climate to competitiveness. In the previous legislative period in Europe it was all about the Green Deal. Now it's about the industry deal.
Speaker 4:But if we want to stay competitive, we'll have to invest in climate change mitigation and adaptation, because if we don't invest now, the bill will be much bigger later. So we need to avoid short-term thinking and also think about the future of the generations that come after us. So green growth and green economy is something we need to invest in and something that is very promising indeed to keep our economy thriving and going. And we'll have to do some rescaling, because there are some industries that maybe belong more to the past, but they will very much find a new home in the green economy.
Speaker 4:The people that were working there and cities and regions are at the forefront when it comes to dealing with the climate goals and targets that have been set. It won't be possible to reach those goals and targets without cities and regions, but also linking that to competitiveness, they have a key role to play in that context as well. They're major procurers of new solutions, of mobility services, of transport services and of infrastructure. They're also infrastructure managers. So in this context, when it comes to competitiveness, they are also a key stakeholder to take into account. So my strong belief is that economy and ecology can be perfect friends.
Speaker 3:Well, I think I can safely say, karen, we're all on the same page there, and what I really love one of the things I really love about sustainable mobility is that you cannot really it's so logically hardwired into any growth narrative, isn't it? You can't achieve growth without by simply multiplying the number of car journeys that people make it's so logical, a bit like green energy and circular economy as well. Growth without by simply multiplying the number of car journeys that people make it's like, so logical, a bit like green energy and circular economy as well. These are, these are parts of our ecological message that massively are in step, aren't they with with a growth narrative exactly, and sustainability.
Speaker 4:As such, the definition includes economy, ecology and social aspects, so it's all integrated there the triple bottom line is uh, is how we describe it.
Speaker 3:So what I wanted to move us on to is the kind of innovation portfolio for polis. Um, and this might, this might take a bit of unpacking from you, because I imagine and this must be hugely exciting for you, I imagine that you get to look at so many different areas of innovation across transport in its widest sense, and you know everything, obviously, from new technologies through to new policy ideas, through to new financial mechanisms. So, across the cities and regions that you convene, what is the innovation agenda? What are the things that actually, what are the things that really excite you coming down the things that, actually, what are the things that really excite you coming down the line that people may not have heard of or know about very well?
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, the first thing I would like to stress is what you mentioned yourself that innovation is not just technology. Innovation is also the way you shape policies, the way you involve citizens and the way you roll out measures. So it's not innovation does not equal just technology, but it also includes technology, of course, and innovation. We have it in our tagline at Polis, so it's really in our DNA, and what we strongly believe in is what we call policy-responsive innovation Innovation coming from the private sector that is aligned with public policy goals and is not undermining those. And that's not a given, because public and private sector interests are not necessarily, or at least not automatically, aligned. So it requires active intervention from the public sector to make sure that we carefully choose those innovations that help us reach our policy goals and help us achieve the ambitions that we have in terms of providing good quality mobility services to our citizens. And that requires what we call the governance of innovation, some kind of public sector oversight and good regulatory frameworks that maximize opportunities brought by that innovation but also mitigate potential negative externalities. So it's about striking the right balance between framing that innovation and allowing that innovation to thrive, and for the latter to happen, we also have to recognize that we need to not just govern innovation. Time a new innovation comes our way, we don't have to start from scratch, but can be more proactive. And it's not easy because if we look at the transport innovations coming our way, there's many. We don't know which ones will stay, which ones will disappear. So it is not easy sometimes for cities and regions to adapt, to immediately respond in the right way. It involves a lot of trial and error, for that matter, to see what works, what doesn't work for both sides public and private sector and then move on and learn from that. And just to highlight a couple of innovation areas that are high on the agenda right now. When it comes to trial and error, I think an iconic example is the arrival of shared micromobility and, in particular, the e-scooters, which were a new mode. E-bikes okay, we knew bikes already, but e-scooters are a new mode. Our cities were not prepared. So we've gone through this whole process and are still going through this whole process of trying to regulate them and making mistakes along the way. But we try with Polis also to facilitate this public-private sector dialogue, look at the best regulatory frameworks that work for both sides and then do better. So that's one example Overall.
Speaker 4:Of course, electrification is another important area where cities and regions have a role to play in making sure that we get this off the ground. It's been slower than we had initially anticipated and hoped for. So creating that critical mass is important, but again, also setting the rules of the game, because we don't want to just replace the current conventional cars with electric cars. That won't solve congestion, it won't improve quality of life to the extent that we want to. So it's also all about multimodal electromobility, and there we have to actively steer again the direction it takes.
Speaker 4:Digitalization, obviously, there's a lot of potential brought by data and intelligent transport systems and combining digitalization and connectivity with vehicles with automation, driverless vehicles that are coming our way. But there again, it will be up to the cities to set the rules of the game today for what will be arriving tomorrow, because if we open our city doors to the automated car in the same way as we did with the conventional car, it's not going to solve any problems. We really have to think carefully about the use cases and in that sense, can also learn from what's happening in the US. So I think we have a stronger regulatory tradition that we should be proud of in Europe, where we really think carefully about how to use these innovations in a way that they help us move forward and help us make our cities and regions better.
Speaker 4:Shared mobility overall is another example which extends the portfolio of multimodal options and alternatives to the private car, because together these different solutions need to compete with what is apparently still so attractive about the private car, and shared mobility is one of those areas that need to be properly integrated also with public transit. Mass transit versus shared mobility modes that meet the needs that cannot be met by public transport, because that's something we also have to recognize that we cannot always cover the needs of everyone at any moment in time with mass transit. Those are more the fancy, technologically inspired innovations. But there's also another big game changer, I think, which is not so much about technological innovation, and that's the massive reallocation of space in our cities.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Rebalancing the distribution of space away from the private car and make that fairer, because some of the negative externalities, for example, linked to e-scooters, are also because we are cramming those light mobility modes into one small bike lane if there is one to begin with whereas the car gets still so much space, and, of course, this is causing problems as well. So this is something we need to tackle and address and, to conclude, to make sure that we smartly integrate all these innovations in a way that they mutually also reinforce each other and that we have this beautiful sustainable mobility future. The best tool for doing that is sustainable urban mobility plan, where you bring all these things together in an integrated way through a long-term political vision that goes beyond election cycles and thinks smartly about the way forward karen, that's amazing.
Speaker 3:I'm going to follow up. Damla is supposed to jump in now, but I'm going to follow up because a I love, I love all of that. I think it's fascinating and I think, by the way, have you ever seen the movie starring joaquin? Joaquin phoenix called her no I haven't, you have to watch it.
Speaker 3:So the kind of the you know, the pitch for the movie is that he in this future world slightly future world um, he falls in love with the operating system on his smartphone and so ai has got these voices and you know people are falling in love with chat gpt right, and is becoming their girlfriend, and so it's that sort of future.
Speaker 3:But what's really fascinating about this movie is and you, you miss it if you're not paying attention this future world is completely devoid of cars and it has got all of these really interesting integrated transport modes that he takes as the movie goes on, but you don't even notice them.
Speaker 3:It's massively worth watching because it's like a glimpse of what the future might be. I have one last question for you on the innovation agenda, which is to what degree the cities and regions that you work with, the philosophical framing that they bring to this equation, is interesting, and how innovative does that need to be? Because I know when I hear some city leaders speak, they totally get that shared and sustainable mobility and public transport is a public good that actually is reinvesting back in the success of their communities and their economy to the degree that some people even discuss having it free for certain cohorts of citizens, and particularly for young people trying to develop their careers or get on through education. Are we being revolutionary enough in the way we see investing in sustainable mobility, and do we need to do more work to recognize it as a public good?
Speaker 4:I think definitely we need to keep protecting it as a public good, because sometimes that's something that is under discussion as well, for example, on the European level, and where they start treating commercial services and public sector driven services in the same way, which I think we should be very careful about.
Speaker 4:So it definitely needs to be protected as a public good, and the financing and the budgeting issue, of course, in that respect is also instrumental. When we want to make sure that our mobility becomes more sustainable, we also should be aware that carrots alone are not going to get us there. We also need to bring out the sticks, and one of the powerful things in that context is to internalize the external costs of polluting transport to society and to reinvest the money by making the polluter pay, to reinvest the money in sustainable alternatives. Sustainable alternatives that means congestion charges, that means low and zero emission zones, all kinds of pricing mechanisms which, of course, are not really met with a great deal of enthusiasm, but are still very impactful measures that we need to take to make sure that we can make this major shift towards high quality alternatives, with public transport and active travel as the backbone.
Speaker 2:Alternatives with public transport and active travelness as the backbone. Well, this question also opened up a good door for my question too, because when you need to be really innovative and, as Steve called it out, not only reformative but also create a big, big, big turnout and change everything, there are a lot of different interest groups, especially in regional and city-wise actions. So how do you bring all of these different interests to the table, get them talking and sort out a solution?
Speaker 4:Well, it's not easy, honestly, because we are in a climate today of increasing populism and polarization and even conspiracy theories. When we think back to what happened to the 15-minute city narrative, hollis has turned into some kind of therapeutic group. You know that political leaders come together and it's like, okay, I'm not the only one dealing with these challenges or with this shit, to put it bluntly. And it can be very helpful for them to hear that there are others out there really trying to push for change and to transform our mobility ecosystem. But it's not easy. And to make sure that you get people on board, that you have buy in, it's really important to involve them from day one and to explain what you are doing and why you are doing it. And again, the Sustainable Immobility Plan that I was mentioning earlier builds in this kind of stakeholder consultation and involvement from day one. But it's also very important to make sure that you don't lose perspective by listening too much to a very loud minority that is basically opposed against everything and demonstrates on whatever topic, whether it's, or goes out and creates a mess, whether it's sustainability, whether it's climate, whether it's COVID, whether it's football. You know to be very aware of that, that beyond that loud minority, there's also a very big silent majority that actually agrees with what you are doing, which is trying to make our cities better. Of course, it's important that we use the opportunities brought by data driven and therefore more evidence based decision making, that you back up your decision with facts, but these days, we also know that facts don't really matter anymore. You know, fake news is out there, narratives which are completely untrue but still believed in. So we have to speak to both hearts and minds and also be clever in the way we sell our sustainable story, and I'm sure that's what you guys are also working on every single day, and I guess we can learn from the car industry in that respect. They've been very good at marketing.
Speaker 4:But what I think is also really powerful when it comes to winning hearts and minds is to let people try something or experience something, so that they know what it could feel like to be in a new city, in a city that is different from a city that is full of traffic jams and noise and polluted air, and in that sense, of course, covid has been a great opportunity to also open up our streets to more active travel to see what it feels like if there are fewer cars, and to reallocate space in favor of being together and outside for other things than driving the car.
Speaker 4:But other events that can be disruptive or can be massive are offering good opportunities in that sense as well. Like in Paris, they made very smart use of the Olympics as an occasion to trial new car-free areas in the cities, initially temporary, but over time to become permanent. Or if you have major construction works in your city and you need to temporarily close down a street, why not make it permanent afterwards? Once people have experienced that actually it's quite nice to have another pedestrian area, very rarely will people want to go back to the way it was before once they know what it can feel like. And piloting or trials can also be powerful for very unpopular measures like the congestion charge in Stockholm. You might remember, steve, that Edinburgh many years ago did a referendum and we know generally that referendums can be horrific in terms of outcome.
Speaker 1:Just a bit.
Speaker 4:But so what Edinburgh did was ask people would you like to have a congestion charge? Well, you can guess what the answer was. Of course, they said no. What Stockholm did was first trial the congestion charge and that people experience how the city was impacted in a positive way by introducing such a charge, and then ask the question to the citizens and after six months of trial, the positive answer came and they said, yes, we want this to stay on. So these are very important mechanisms to make sure that you go beyond the polarization, that you go beyond the fake news and false narratives and really try to stay on course with your political choices and with going for a more sustainable city.
Speaker 3:Well, karen, it wasn't just Edinburgh, we did it in Manchester as well, and the referendum was appalling. And, as I said at the time, because I was closely involved, I said look, the only place in the entire world that has had a successful referendum on congestion charging is Stockholm. Exactly the reason you say because they trialed it, but also the way they framed it. I don't know if you remember, but the stockholm vote was largely held the the. The voting public was inside the charging ring, so they had the kind of natural cohort who wouldn't automatically benefit from it. But yeah, people will never vote for an additional tax. It's kind of crazy to think that you could ever pull that off.
Speaker 3:I love the idea of your group being a therapy session for, particularly for those looking at politics and how you keep polarization away from something as fundamentally logical as transport. It's kind of crazy, isn't, when you think about 15 million cities becoming this global contagion of conspiracy theory, and one of the things I think that does fuel polarization is the feeling that people are left behind and that the transition towards a net zero future, for example, is going to leave a lot of people feeling poorer, feeling more threatened in terms of their jobs. So you can understand why people become or let me phrase this correctly you can understand why people are easy to politicise on that basis, and a just transition is discussed around new industries, the Green Deal, the transition of jobs, but it does pertain to transport as well, doesn't it? So what's your perspective on a just transition in the transport agenda?
Speaker 4:Well, transport is really at the heart of this discussion because it is an enabler to provide access to services for all, basically. So it really is important and we are going through this paradigm shift in transport towards more sustainable mobility. Paradigm shift in transport towards more sustainable mobility, and it's a shift that is active on multiple fronts. You know, a motor shift cleaner vehicles, a modal shift away from the car, a space shift is reallocation. I was talking about a cost shift in terms of where we put the money and also who we make pay for what. So these shifts are there are so many of them that we also have to make sure that, indeed, we don't leave anyone behind and that this shift is going to be just and inclusive. We have established within POLIS, what we call the Just Transition Task Force to make sure that all the work we do, that we apply the inclusion lens to that work, and that we look at issues related to gender, for example, because the mobility of men and women is very different and generally, our mobility system has catered for white men nothing against you, steve, but there's also 50% of the population that is female, and there are, of course, also vulnerable groups or mobility impaired people that we need to talk about. Aging society is something we need to address cultural diversity, car dependence so there's a multitude of issues to look at and we are working very hard with our cities and regions to do that. The yellow jackets was an example of the kind of revolt that you were referring to.
Speaker 4:And coming back to the pricing mechanisms, of course, sometimes people say you know, if you introduce such pricing mechanisms, it will hit those in society which are already the most vulnerable. But that's also not necessarily true, because if you look at those people which are very vulnerable in society, very often they don't even have a car, but they are living in those areas which are exposed to the highest levels of air and noise pollution, for example. So we also have to unpack those false narratives. What I think could be potentially a very good opportunity right now is the Social Climate Fund that the Commission has launched, which is also looking at protecting the most vulnerable groups in society that could potentially be negatively impacted by the climate transition that we are going through and the measures that we need to introduce to mitigate the negative impacts. It's very much looking at the concept of transport poverty and we have issued, with Polis, a number of recommendations to the member states, because it's the national level that is currently drawing up these plans to address transport poverty.
Speaker 4:I think it would be a mistake to put all the money into subsidizing the purchase of electric cars, for example, because it will not sufficiently make a difference. It would also not go to the people that need it the most. What we believe is very powerful in overcoming transport poverty is making our mobility more multimodal, going away from forced car ownership, because usually that forced car ownership is due to a lack of choice, due to a lack of alternatives. So if we invest more in public transport, if we invest more in shared mobility and also look at the regional scale, not just the city scale, where options are usually less available, that's really how we can make sure that our transport system becomes more inclusive and that we then no longer fuel the revolt that you were referring to.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, I mean. Mean I think that will be a great. Last question. I have so many others especially. You've opened a lot of doors for me with the gender, with the mobility impaired people and everything, but I don't have time for them.
Speaker 3:I hate when we should do it. We have to do a gender follow up. We have to. I'm such such an important topic. Nobody ever bloody. Oh, nobody ever really gets properly stuck into that. Anyway, I won't start.
Speaker 2:So I'm just jumping to our final question. Our network is ironically called Do Not Smile, because we need to make sustainability a subject that brings happiness into the world. So what object, place or person always makes you smile? I?
Speaker 4:would say that's people-centered cities with beaches and with bike share systems. That's basically my ideal holiday. I love going to cities where people are at the center, not cars, where you can pick up a bike from a bike share system to go around and where you have a beach, like in the city. You can imagine which cities I'm talking about the likes of Barcelona, lisbon. You know that makes me happy.
Speaker 3:Oh, I love that. Yeah, Sadly in Manchester we don't currently have a beach, but we do have some lovely rivers.
Speaker 4:that's about as good as well water is good as well. I just spent a week in in vienna, where they have a lot of bike lanes, but they also have the danube, so we had a very nice bike trips among the danube, oh, that's beautiful, danube.
Speaker 3:The danube, it has to be the most, most magnificent river, don't you think? I mean, it's really you've got lovely rivers as well, but I tell you what, among the Danube oh, that's beautiful, the Danube, it has to be the most magnificent river, don't you think?
Speaker 4:I mean.
Speaker 3:Damla, you've got lovely rivers as well, but I tell you what the Danube.
Speaker 2:No, as far as the rivers go, danube is okay. Okay, I'm on board.
Speaker 3:Okay, so we're doing a gender follow-up and let's just get into rivers. We've not done it. I mean, it's pretty off topic, but let's go there on a future episode. Karen, it's been so lovely talking to you and, as Damla said, we could carry on. There's so much more that we could talk about, but thank you so much for spending time with us. Damla, do you want to wrap it up? My pleasure.
Speaker 2:So thanks to everyone who has listened to our Good Guys podcast, brought to you by the Do Not Smile network of agencies.
Speaker 3:And make sure you listen to future episodes. We'll be talking to more amazing people about how we can work together to create a more sustainable future.
Speaker 4:So, Damla Karen, see you soon. Bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you, bye-bye. Good Geist, a podcast series on sustainability Hosted by Damla Özler and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS network.
