Can we Risk a Business-as-usual Approach?

The European Union must upgrade its transport infrastructure and improve its transport policies if it wants to revive its economy: that was the message from the European Transport Forum, held in Brussels on October 18 last year. Transport may not be the highest priority today, bu...

Mark your diary!

How serious are we about Connecting Europe? Despite numerous efforts over the decades, the European Union is still unable to say it truly has a single market in transport. Whether by road, rail, water or air, the European transport system is still struggling with obstacles to rea...

Road Safety: Would a 30km/h Speed Limit Help?

Does the key to road safety lie in something as simple as a strict speed limit? That appears to be the suggestion from the European Parliament where a 30km/h speed limit is being proposed for residential areas. As the European Union’s latest road safety plan winds its way through the insti...

Electric Cars: Formula 1 and Rolls Royce are Getting in on it

A revealing shift is taking place in the motoring sector, representing a potential tipping point for electric vehicles, and the European Union is at the heart of this change. When the glamorous world of Formula 1 racing starts organizing an electric Grand Prix and ultra-luxury...

Monti: Reboot Europe through the Single Market

Europe’s single market was never completed and key sectors including transport are hampered by national barriers, warns EU elder statesman Mario Monti. In an exclusive interview with the European Transport Forum, Monti – a former EU Commissioner - urges policymakers to refocus ...

Poll: petrol-free economy

Will the EU meet its target of a petrol-free economy by 2050?

	Yes
	yes, mainly with electric vehicles
	yes, mainly with hybrid vehicles
	yes, mainly with biofuels
	yes, mainly with hydrogen
	yes, with a mix of alternatives
	No

Poll: Eurovignette

Do you consider a single Eurovignette desirable?

	Yes
	No

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Petrol-free cities by 2050; the EU's ambitious transport blueprint

Tuesday, 29 March 2011 15:40

Cars will be banned from cities across Europe under a radical European Commission plan to cut emissions by over the next 40 years. The long-awaited proposals on a ‘single European transport area’ aims at enforcing "a profound shift in transport patterns for passengers" by 2050, including rules that over half all journeys above 300km should be by rail. But: can these goals be met?

It was as bold a pronouncement as any from Brussels: on March 28, Siim Kallas, the EU Transport Commissioner, declared that directives and new taxation of fuel would be used to force people out of their petrol and diesel-driven cars and onto "alternative" means of transport by 2050. "That means no more conventionally fuelled cars in our city centres," he said. "Action will follow, legislation, real action to change behaviour."

- full article -

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