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ABSTRACT
The increasing interest in sustainable urbanism, especially in its ecological aspects, has heightened the need for holistic mobility strategies. According to the "European Environment Agency report 2006" and "The Leipzig Chart for Durable European Cities 2007", European Community acts, the urban developments' main problem is the uncontrolled, fragmented expansion of their suburbs, known as urban sprawl. Characterized by low density, single function and high car dependency, it causes economical (poor use of resources), ecological (extensive land use, pollution) and social (segregation and alienation) issues.
This phenomenon occurred in Romania after 2000, during the economic boom. Due to the 2009 economic crisis in most cities the result is an incipient form of urban sprawl, a case similar to most Eastern European countries. However, the high car dependency is exacerbated by the presence of local factors, namely, outdated infrastructure, unable to adapt to current needs, overtaken by parking and the increasing number of vehicles. As, in Romania, cars are viewed a symbol of social status, public transportation, already challenged by low density, has been replaced by private means.
As critical levels have not been reached and lessons are harder to learn from other's experience, this is the ideal stage for intervention through new regulations and strategies, to avoid further expansion of this fragmented type of urban development upon the first sign of economic growth.
The purpose of this study is the development of a three pillar mobility strategy, based on public transportation and networks of bicycle and pedestrian lanes and facilities, aimed at recentralizing the city by densifying its central areas. The results are based on a case study carried out on the city of Timisoara, the main focus being a long term shift in the mobility typology towards bicycle usage.
Keywords: mobility, infrastructure, urban sprawl, bicycle network, sustainable urbanism
INTRODUCTION
The suburbs expansion in the territory, in the second half of the XIX-th century, represented the middle classes' reaction to the chaotic, squalid and crowded industrial cities of United Kingdom. Through its uniform congestion, noise and insanitary public space was erasing the differences between the classes. Initially based on public transportation, trams and metro, these suburbs were the basis for Ebenezer Howard's theory on garden cities developed in 1889. These semiautonomous satellite cities connected...