Developing the social dimension of sustainable urban mobility: The ECCENTRIC project in Madrid

Abstract

This paper explores the difficulties of properly developing the social dimension of the sustainable mobility paradigm in urban mobility. It analyses the experience and results of one of the threes implementing actions funded by the CIVITAS initiative in the 2016-2020 period: the ECCENTRIC project implemented in 5 cities, including Madrid. As in the other participating cities, in Madrid most of the planned measures were successfully implemented and achieved their self-defined sustainability targets. However. the project struggled to address the social challenges in its living labs. This experience suggests that innovation in urban mobility may be responding more to the expectations of European “mobile elites” than to bridging the growing social gap in cities. It also sends a strong message to benefit more from the social potential of sustainable mobility measures, by embedding them within wider social and urban regeneration strategies. Finally, it calls for a social turn in the EU urban mobility initiatives to better address the social dimension of sustainability in future.