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CIVITAS VANGUARD
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Gent website
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| Gent (Belgium) is a bustling historical city, with art and culture of the highest quality, an overflowing calendar of events and numerous shops, bars and restaurants. With the 24 Civitas Elan measures, Gent will continue its policy of sustainable development by improving public transport, creating a ‘House of the Bike’, etc. |
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Bustling Gent
Gent, located between Brussels, Bruges and Antwerp, is Belgium’s third largest city and offers everything you need to make life enjoyable! It is a bustling historical, yet contemporary city, with art and culture of the highest quality, an overflowing calendar of events, a huge variety of shops, welcoming café terraces and numerous bars and restaurants. In November 2008, National Geographic Travel Magazine, ranked the historic city centre of Gent third in the Top 109 of the most authentic destinations worldwide.
In the late medieval times, Gent was the largest city outside of Paris. Gent is now the second largest city of the region 'Flanders'. In its unique way, Gent has managed to preserve its medieval power, while keeping up with time. The city has an important harbour, thanks to the canal Gent-Terneuzen. The Gent University (UGent) continues to grow in importance. The presence of so many young people and students has turned Gent into an important Flemish cultural centre.
Gent is the core city of a metropolitan area of about 500,000 inhabitants. This means that 290,000 people live in the municipalities of the Gent commuting belt outside the city limits. Every day, about 35,000 people commute to Gent and 43,000 people commute from Gent. The city itself has 239,000 inhabitants and over 60,000 university and high school students.
Mobility in Gent
Gent is situated at the junction of the motorways E17 and E40 and can easily be reached by car. National and international trains stop in Gent. The city has an extensive public transport network serving the city centre and surrounding area. All these elements make Gent an attractive city and generate considerable levels of traffic from and to the city. Major highways that link Gent with all other important cities in Belgium surround the city, making it very easy to reach the city centre by car, but at the same time leading to excessive private vehicle usage.
In order to counter the traffic problems, a number of plans were established.
The bicycle plan (1993)
In 1993 the city introduced a bicycle plan, featuring cycling infrastructure, theft prevention and creating a bicycle culture, including a ‘bicycle unit’ in the city administration. A lot of infrastructure was, and is still, constructed along city roads or along the abundant waterways in the city (including some underpasses under bridges).
The ‘Mobility Plan for the Inner city’ (1997)
This ambitious plan was introduced in 1997. In the early stage of the project, it had many opponents and was contested by numerous retailers and citizens.
The main features of the plan were:
- no through traffic anymore in the city centre of Gent (by creating a large pedestrian area and by traffic flow measures);
- pedestrians, cyclists and public transport are given more space, since only few cars are allowed in the city centre;
- traffic calming: apart of the pedestrian area, a speed limit of 30 km/h has been established between the pedestrian area and the parking route;
- streets and squares were re-designed to make the city centre more attractive to citizens and visitors.
Recent interviews stated that living in and visiting Gent is now far more pleasant and attractive than a decade ago.
With CIVITAS ELAN, Gent wants to proceed with its plans to make Gent one of the most advanced ‘mobile’ cities in Belgium.
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