ARTISTS (Arterial Streets Towards Sustainability) is a joint European Project funded by the European Commission. The project is a part of Key Action "City of Tomorrow and Cultural Heritage" in the Fifth Framework Programme "Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development". The project has lasted for three years and is due to be completed in December 2004. ARTISTS has the primary aim to improve the reconstruction of arterial streets in our cities. The results will be presented in a report for planners and decision makers with propositions of how to improve the different parts in the planning process towards more balanced, innovate and sustainable solutions when reconstructing arterial streets. In addition the results will be presented and discussed with traffic planners and decision-makers in connection to various workshops and seminars. The project has 9 partners from research organisations from 9 countries and 6 city partners, each linked to one of the research partners each. Countries represented are Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and UK. Ase Svensson at the Department of Technology and Society in Lund is the co-ordinator of the project. The paper defines an arterial street as being "a major street combining strategic network role with urban activities" and considers its conflicting functions in relation to eight interest groups, including children, the elderly, shop owners, street residents, cyclists, etc. The work with ARTISTS is an inexpensive way of involving citizens early in a process towards reconstruction of an arterial street. The citizens have been able to define visions and goals and set out means of how to get to the desired future. The costs involved are rather high at least in relation to what planners are used to spend for this kind of purposes to-day. The benefits are, however, quite high but can primarily only be appreciated in the long term. A strong recommendation is anyway to at least involve stakeholders for bigger projects and to make them participate early in the process. For the covering abstract see ITRD E136183.
Abstract