Representatives of the cities of Bonn, Brussels, Dublin and Milan, as well as several organisations sent a letter on Friday 22 May to the European Commission Vice-President responsible for the Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, and the Transport Commissioner, Adina Vălean, inviting them to provide targeted, multi-billion euro support to public transport companies.
“Public transport has suffered immense loss of revenue; it will need to be supported to ensure attractive services and, at the same time, achieve climate and air quality goals”, say the signatories, who fear that users will prefer polluting private vehicles to public transport after the crisis.
In order to help cities meet European emissions targets, elected representatives and organisations suggest that a €3.5 billion support programme to finance the purchase of zero-emission buses should be set up as part of the Commission’s next recovery plan.
Finally, the signatories suggest that part of the budget of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme be allocated to the modernisation of public transport and that a system of subsidies be put in place immediately so that cities can build permanent cycling infrastructure.
To read the letter: https://bit.ly/2zt9OOQ (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)