»It is a wild ride!« On navigating mobility choices in Ljubljana
We invited five people living in or around Ljubljana to a group conversation and asked them to share their daily mobility routines, difficulties on their journeys and good practises they encountered. A more in-depth qualitative analysis of the conversation is still to come, but there are a few preliminary insights that somehow came to the fore.
First, to reduce the need for mobility within the city, it is important that neighbourhoods and districts have good infrastructure and services (farmers’ market, grocery shops, general shop, cafés, restaurants, parks, walking paths, etc.). Secondly, it is important to decentralise mobility options that are now limited to the city centre only – such as kavalir (a free electric public transport in the city centre) – to provide additional options for elderly and mobility-impaired people to reach the city centre and encourage the use of public transport instead of their own cars. Thirdly, Ljubljana takes good care of its cyclists, but the “cycling culture” could be improved. As one of the participants said, “It’s a wild ride!” People looking at their smartphones and chatting, listening to music (and not paying attention to the traffic and happenings around them) or riding their e-scooters faster than appropriate. And fourthly, public transportations timings and routes could be improved.
And what comes next? Holidays 🙂 And then, in the next academic year, we will use the findings from the current research and – well, try to understand mobility in Ljubljana a bit better.
Watch the short video of the focus group HERE.
