A Brief Analysis of the Sustainable Mobility Approach in Bucharest

Bucharest's public transport system is currently a work in progress, and it follows parallel directions: on the one hand, it is bound to respect the European directives and strategies, and on the other, it must respond to some specific needs of the ever-growing city, that is to ensure access to its citizens and to provide an efficient road system in and around the capital. Even though the public transport system has some advantages, such as a very low price compared to other European capitals and a good distribution of stations, it does have its negative aspects, which might promote an overall negative image on its efficiency: the limited length of dedicated lanes, translated often into delays, the relatively low quality of the fleet servicing certain areas of the city, the lack of intermodal and changing hubs. Correspondingly, even other sustainable transport means, such as bicycle infrastructure are hardly sufficient for a growing capital, especially given the fact that both European policies and local civic society representatives ask for the administration to address this issue. The present article aims to first discuss the state of affairs concerning Bucharest's public transportation and the steps taken to make it more sustainable, in the context provided by European regulations, by underlining similarities with other post-socialist capitals. This approach hopes to show that the named capitals tend to face similar problems when it comes to sustainable urban transport systems. Secondly, sustainable transport in Bucharest has been approached from the point of view of the accessibility it provides to certain specific areas, namely new residential areas, as well as of its capacity to adapt and integrate existing infrastructures, such as train and metro networks. A potential first solution to create intermodal nodes and hubs, networking the metro and the local/regional train systems, while also providing other services: PR parkings, bicycle parkings and rental services etc., as to propose greener transport alternatives to citizens and especially commuters.