Country profile report

INTRODUCTION

The interviews have been conducted with:

1. 
   DECISION MAKERS AND POLICY INFLUENCERS from:
   

• 
  Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration – public manager within MA-ROP (Managing Authority of the Regional Operational Programme)
  
• 
  The World Bank Group - Bucharest office – senior urban specialist
  
• 
  Regional Development Agencies: “Centru” Regional Development Agency (ADR Centru) – director and Bucharest-Ilfov Regional Development Agency (ADR Bucuresti-Ilfov) – director
  
• 
  Bucharest municipality – Executive Director for Transport and Traffic
  
• 
  Metropolitan Agencies (AZM) and Intercommunity Development Associations (ADI) management bodies: Iasi Metropolitan Region Agency – Head of projects’ management department; Brasov Metropolitan Region Agency - programmes’ manager , Alba-Iulia Intercommunity development Agency – Alba-Iulia city manager;
  

2. 
   PROFESSIONAL, PRACTITIONERS AND THEMATIC EXPERTS from:
   

• 
  County capitals: Alba-Iulia, Bacau, Braila, Constanta and Suceava
  
• 
  Municipalities: Fagaras and Hundeoara
  
• 
  Public transport operators: Alba-Iulia (STP Alba), Braila (BRAICAR) and Bucharest (RATB)
  
• 
  Environment and Energy Agencies: ABMEE (Brasov Agency for Energy Management and Environment Protection), ALEA (Alba Local Energy Agency)
  
• 
  Universities: Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, “Politechnica” University Bucharest, “Politechnica” University Timisoara, University of architecture and urban planning Ion Mincu Bucharest, University of Pitesti
  
• 
  NGOs and professional associations: ATU (The Association for Urban Transition), CiMo (Association Cities on the Move), OPTAR (Romanian Organisation for Alternative Transport), AMM (The Association for Metropolitan Mobility), CODATU Romania, CEP (Centre of Excellence in Planning), Association a Green Yes/Wave (Targu-Mures), ActiveWatch – monitoring agency and the Railways Club,
  
• 
  Companies: Metroul SA, AV Transport Planning SRL and Sigma SRL.
  

2. STATUS OF SUMP IN ROMANIA

In 2014 MDRAP, with the support from EBRD and Jaspers, but also from other EU bodies and institutions, started to define both the legal and financial framework for SUMPs to be take-up at local level, thus to be developed and implemented by the Romanian cities and towns.

A first step made by the MDRAP was the inclusion - in 2013 - of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan in the 350 law on urban and spatial planning as a mandatory component of the Urban Masterplans (the so called PUGs - General Urban Masterplans) for any municipality above 100000 inhabitants. This was a major step in generating a shift on how urban transport and urban planning integrated. Prior to this, transport was included in city strategic planning only in the form of traffic substantiation studies¹. In addition, by making the SUMP mandatory for the Urban Masterplan completion and approval, the premises and framework have been set for cooperation between transport and urban planning professionals, with the overall aim to ensure an urban development correlated to sustainable urban transport determinants.

A second step made by MDRAP, with support from JASPERS and EBRD funding, was the launch in 2014 of the development of SUMPs for seven entities of polycentric growth – the so called Growth Poles (Brasov, Cluj-Napoca, Constanta, Craiova, Iasi, Ploiesti and Timisoara) and also for Bucharest-Ilfov Region. Few months later Galati city was added to the GPs group, EBRD funding both SUMP development and implementation; and recently the same EBRD funding scheme has been applied for Sibiu city SUMP.

This second step has been a boost for sustainable urban mobility planning in Romania: on the one hand because it shows support from European level and commitment on behalf of the national level². On the other, because it is intended for the growth poles SUMPs (whose development is to be finalised by end of 2015) to serve as a role-model for other medium size municipalities in Romania, especially county capitals (41 in number).

However, though the 350 law has set SUMPs as a priority on the local administrations’ agenda, at the date of this report writing, MDRAP has provided only a draft of SUMP guidelines – the guidelines have not been officially released to support local administrations in SUMPs tenders launch and development. In the same time, Jaspers' terms of reference provided for the development of the growth poles SUMPs have been used by other city administrations than the growth poles ones when launching their own city SUMP tenders.

Other municipalities, mainly county capitals (such as: Braila, Suceava, Targu-Mures, Piatra-Neamt, Botosani, Baia-Mare, etc.) undertaking Urban Masterplans were/are, at the time of preparation of this report, in the position of developing SUMPs in order to have their Urban Masterplans approved, but have not been provided with a guideline to steer them in developing this plan. Though useful and valuable the JASPERS terms of reference do not take entirely into account the local (legal, institutional, social, etc.) context and planning culture and thus are not entirely usable when applied for other Romanian cities’ SUMPs than the growth poles SUMPs.

Another recent initiative of MDRAP through the Managing Authority of the Regional Operational Programme (MA-ROP) to support the SUMPs adoption is their inclusion in the list of projects to be financed by the 2014-2020 Regional Operational Programme (ROP). Thus, Regional Development Agencies, through which the ROP funds are allocated and the programme monitored at local level will condition or support the allocation of funds to cities according to their engagement in the SUMP take-up.

To conclude consistent progress has been made towards sustainable transport integration on the local agendas. However, the overlaps in authority, management and funding of the different MDRAP departments creates a lot of confusion at local level, medium and small sizes administrations not knowing what guidelines to comply to and from where to fund SUMPs: from the ROP (Regional Operational Programme) 2014-2020 or from the local budget as an independent project or as part of the Urban Masterplan (PUG) budget.

3. PESTLE ANALYSIS

Urban transport problems have been constantly present on the political agenda during the last 15-20 years, but generally in the form of projects addressing car-traffic congestion through road infrastructure extension and building of parking places (especially in city centres). This ‘political vision/approach’ has taken a sustainable turn only during the last 5-7 years, when the European transport policy has started to be felt through incentivizing funding that supported governmental, regional or local initiatives which favoured sustainability in transport. Other essential factors triggering the ‘political shift’ toward sustainable transport have been the inclusion of the SUMPs in the urban planning law and the funding of SUMPs by European money (either EBRD or structural funds – Regional Operational Programme).

Though in many ways a sustainable understanding of transport has been a top-down process, once the SUMPs framework has been initiated and relatively set-up, the national level does not interfere much at local level – only through the Regional Development Agencies when approving projects and allocating funding. This shows a clear tendency of decentralisation, decisions on what transport projects should be have priority for funding in a certain city being up to that respective city local council. However, in the previous financing period 2007-2013, in many cases funding was given only on a project/plan submission basis and this did not allow a close monitoring in terms of sustainability compliance. Some of the policy influencers interviewed expressed the opinion that this should be changed in the next financing period (2014-2020) because beside a better integration of sustainability concepts in transport projects this will also enable local administrations to give feedback of the barriers faced in SUMP adoption and in this sense will lead to improvement of the newly set-up framework.

These issues are partly addressed by the next financing period and the 2014-2020 Regional Operational Programme – ROP. The 2014-2020 ROP identifies sustainable urban mobility as a new type of investment under the 4^th Axis of funding – “Supporting sustainable urban development” (out of 11 axes). “Growing urban mobility” is up-fronted by the new ROP as a new type of investment, its aim being “the development of an efficient urban transport, to determine citizens to give up travelling by private motorised vehicles and use more friendly transport modes”³. The new ROP allocates funds for projects focusing on electric and non-motorised transport as well as on developing the necessary infrastructure to support their operation. The first priority of the 4^th Axis emphasises the role and necessity of developing SUMPs for adopting strategies to reduce CO2 and emissions, for all territories but particularly for urban areas. The investments’ results should be monitored and assessed against relevant indicators such as: “no. of passages transported by public transport”, “total length of new or improved tram or metro lines”, “levels of GHG resulting from road transport”, etc.

With regards to decisions on what transport projects should be part of the local agenda, there is, in the opinion of some interviewees, an certain influence/pressure exerted by certain interest groups that favour own profit or political gain at the expense of the general sustainable good, experts'/professionals' opinions being rarely taken into consideration in these cases. However, this occurs less frequently in the last years in the larger cities where civil society has started to play an active role in raising awareness about benefits of sustainable transport, while bringing into the light the hidden or unknown effects of some apparently highly economic beneficial projects. Amongst these projects considered (generally by local administrations and road lobbyist companies) economically beneficial there are: roads widening or insertion of highways and/or parking areas in the city centre or building underground pedestrian passages for car traffic priority and fluency. However, not all these projects/ideas have been implemented; some (e.g. building an underground passage for pedestrians in one of Bucharest’s central squares, Romana Square) are still under consideration/debate - due to strong civil society opposition or because they require consistent finance.

ECONOMIC

In majority the interviewees from the small and medium municipalities pointed out the financial difficulties confronted when intending to include in the local budget the implementation of sustainable transport projects. One interviewee from a small city explained that the annual budget voted by the local council and allocated by the national level cannot cover expenses with sustainable transport. “When the budget is decided priority is given first to overhead and salary costs; then to projects in the social area (allowances and help for disadvantaged or vulnerable groups); when it comes to transport on top of the list are the projects initiated the previous year that need to be finalised or continued (these being mainly maintenance of the road infrastructure - asphalt pavement works) and when projects on sustainable transport (such as development of a cycling network or of an efficient PT service) are mentioned money are no longer available”. Of course, as also admitted by some of the interviewees, this distribution of the budget unfavourable for sustainable transport is also due to the fact that local councillors do not understand completely the concept and do not see investments in it as having an immediate impact and as generating image and politic gain for them.

Other cities intend to invest in sustainable transport with funds from the Regional Operational Programme, the 4th priority Axis. However, since this Axis of the ROP allocates money to municipalities not only for transport projects but also for others sectors (such as public and green spaces and landscaping), some municipal interviewees consider these funds as insufficient to cover all necessary sustainable transport projects and highlight difficulties in prioritising between sectors and projects.

In contrast with the situations above there are few municipalities that initiated partnerships and requested funding from third parties – private investors (for PT development in the case of Alba-Iulia) or the Swiss funds (for electric bus fleet acquisition and power supply system development in the case of Suceava).

Citizens, especially large settlements citizens are highly aware about the impact of excessive car use and, in general, of the unsustainable transport way of life for environment, health and the economy. However, car is still perceived as the most convenient and rapid way of getting from one place to another. This perception is quite common in the case of less economic prosperous small-medium size cities, where congestion is not acute and does not occur often and where monthly fuel consumption is not a burden for the family budget.

Also car is seen as the most convenient mode of transport by the inhabitants of the recent urban developments (office-buildings and large supermarket districts or individual housings) adjacent to large cities, which have a poor accessibility and PT connectivity. In this sense some of the respondents (both local administration and NGOs representatives) emphasised the necessity for the planning/design solutions of these new developments to better provide for public transport and better integrate alternative modes. Also, better integrating and coordinating transport modes between city, its suburbs and, in general, city’s larger transport perimeter is considered an important aspect for solving both residents and commuters mobility problems.

Some of the interviewees mention that car still is seen by many as a social object used for wealth and social status display. By contrast with the communist times, owning a car is now allowed and shows financial power. However, especially in large cities (Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Timisoara, etc.) there is a trend among young people to cycle for daily trips. Though the increase of trips by bike has not been exponential (now representing only 2-3% in the modal split), according to ongoing SUMPs surveys, these trips are made by young people having medium level incomes and affording car ownership. Thus, cycling for them is not a necessity but rather an option.

Though some ITS projects bringing results in terms of sustainability and congestion reduction have been mentioned by some of the respondents, not all of them are aware of ITS potential in achieving sustainability in transport. Higher interest on technological improvements was shown by interviewees from large cities where technological and ITS solutions gave concrete results. Small cities representatives however have shown less interest in ITS and its benefits for urban transport. One the one hand this is due to the inapplicability of ITS solutions for small scale cities (that are crossable on foot in one hour and do not have complex transport systems needing complex ITS management solutions); on the other is due to the limited budget resources of the small cities that need to invest mainly in infrastructure maintenance and repairs, which doesn’t leave much place for consideration of technological acquisitions, often wrongly considered as expensive/unaffordable investments.

As detailed in Chapter 2, “Status of SUMPs in Romania”, a legislative frame has been set-up for SUMP development, these being included in the 350 law on urban and spatial planning as a mandatory component of the Urban Masterplans for any municipality above 100000 inhabitants (this in accordance with the SUMP European guidelines). However, guidelines on what should be the content of the SUMPs and what steps should be undertaken for their development have not been yet officially released by the same Ministry department that included the SUMPs in the 350 law.

Presently the guidelines supporting the SUMPs development are the terms of reference provided by Jaspers for the development of 8 growth poles SUMPs. These guidelines are circulated and encouraged by MA-ROP (the Managing Authority of the Regional Operational Programme) especially when a city decides to develop a SUMP as a standalone project (not necessarily correlated with the urban master plan), financed from ROP trough the 4^th Axis.

A shortcoming in the process of SUMPs adoption is the lack of a clearly defined framework for their implementation – in terms of defining bodies/institutions involved and their role but also of defining financing mechanism and identifying funds to support implementation. Municipal representatives but also professionals and activists signalled this shortcoming with statements like: “We are good at developing a plan/policy and having it on paper, but we are bad at applying this policy!”. Some of the interviewees admitted that successful implementation is also highly dependable on the political will and engagement for sustainability. Still support from the national/regional level in defining an implementation framework has been claimed and sometimes declared as essential to overcome implementation barriers.

The environmental arguments are highly evoked as change generators of both mobility behaviour and transport policy. However they tend to be more listened to when correlated with impacts on health. In general both the general public and politicians are less sensitive to arguments relying on GHG and CO2 emissions – they see them as something far away from our times and to affect us in a distant future. More convincing seem to be the arguments detailing NOx and particles effects for our health. Unfortunately, there were still voices among the interviewees arguing that this is one of the reasons that should impede us from cycling, in their opinion, cyclists being highly exposed to emissions from car traffic thus, when cycling putting their health in danger.

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