Sustainable mobility trailblazers took centre stage at last week’s Urban Mobility Days event as this year’s CIVITAS Award winners were announced.

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) and Funchal (Portugal) took home two leading European prizes for clean and green mobility, with Aachen (Germany), Larissa (Greece), Porto (Portugal), and Rome (Italy) the runners-up. Both Larissa and Rome are ICLEI Members.

Matthew Baldwin, Deputy Director-General, DG MOVE, presented awards for remarkable resilience and boldness in response to COVID-19, and for using the CIVITAS Initiative as a springboard to reach new sustainable mobility heights.

Combining a rapid reaction with a long-term vision, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria was the deserving winner of the “CIVITAS Resilience” award for its extensive ad-hoc initiatives.

These include increased space for pedestrians and cyclists, and car-free access to key roads on weekends – in the context of its “Mobility Plan for the New Normal”, which heralds the scaling up and replication of short-term solutions. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria set itself apart from other cities by adapting its crisis response as the basis of a new mobility reality.

The wide-ranging responses of Porto and Rome made them worthy runners-up. By opening temporary pedestrian zones, replacing parking spaces with ‘parklets’ for various uses, introducing an e-scooter sharing programme, and closing streets at weekends, Porto kept its residents safe, its neighbourhoods alive, and its businesses afloat.

The Italian capital’s support of physical distancing included promotion of walking and cycling, enabling safe public transport, and developing a plan for 150km of temporary cycle routes. Of these, 20km are already in place. Many of the aforementioned measures drew on ones already in the city's sustainable urban mobility plan (SUMP), whilst its cycle lanes plan was partially inspired by its participation in CIVITAS Handshake.

Funchal scooped up the “CIVITAS Legacy” award with its decision to address traffic head-on by imposing multiple traffic access restrictions and closing city centre streets to vehicles.

This change was driven by involvement in the CIVITAS Initiative, which has also helped Funchal become a testbed for innovative solutions, such as automatic traffic counters. Politicians from the Portuguese city have also served as members of the CIVITAS Political Advisory Committee.

Further plaudits in the “CIVITAS Legacy” category went to Aachen and Larissa. Involved since 2011, Aachen has a rich CIVITAS legacy and remains active in the CIVITAS community. Its pedelec-sharing system, sustainable business trip policy, ongoing SUMP process, and the electrification of the city’s bus fleet have their roots in CIVITAS project participation.

A founding member of the CIVITAS local network for Cyprus and Greece, Larissa packs an admirable sustainable mobility punch: its extensive pedestrianisation scheme and its new low-density city centre streets represent only two of its array of mobility solutions.

Read the full event press release here. See videos from all CIVITAS Award winners and finalists here.