Leading buildings for sports practice in this area of the city, the most prepared centers and libraries for higher education, a large space for buying with parking and the beautiful walkways in that area. So we've organized our urbanism over the last few decades, and we want the best car parks and routes for cars moving back and forth. It seems an advance that every day we have to make all these moves from one place to another, and we citizens are calling for mobility plans to be directed towards those modes.

The mobility councillor of the City of Donostia-San Sebastian, Jon Albizu, referred to sustainable mobility. It places the issue within the economic and social system: How sustainable is the current model? It's a fat point, and you know, he says, that the change of a system like this is not going to be overnight. However, in this time they are beginning to make the changes that are within their reach and that they can make in the city towards that path.

It is clear that many citizens have to move every day, both from Donostia-San Sebastián to another town in its surroundings, and from the surrounding area to Donostia-San Sebastián, and they want to put every possible resource to the citizens, always promoting the most sustainable model possible.

For this purpose, they created, for example, the Mugi card for public transport jointly, in cooperation with the Council of Gipuzkoa. In this way, whether you go to the city outside or outside it, you can move with the same card in the public bus system. It also serves urban buses, but other resources are being built to be able to move around in Donostia, such as the bidegorris bike network.

Broadening the existing network

Albizu says that a network has been approached that comes from previous legislatures, that some steps have already been taken and that this network is now being extended. In this case, he stressed that until now most bidegorris have been executed by taking space from the sidewalks, while those who are being built at the moment are doing so by the rolling roads.

The aim is to minimise the number of cars circulating in the city and, without limiting the mobility of people, to offer and promote other models of displacement. In addition, the number of so-called zones 30 located on different roads and streets of the city has been increased, allowing bicycles to be placed at the level of motor vehicles.

More pedestrian areas

When we talk about displacement, we often put aside the way most people move: walking. So far we have modified most of the streets, leaving the pedestrian in a corner, but it seems that it is becoming fashionable to make areas for the walker.

Some pedestrian streets have also been enabled in Donostia-San Sebastián, but they have been carried out in different ways. Here too, the economic and social system. Jon Albizu explained that so far the cost of pedestrian streets that have been conditioned in the city for pedestrians is usually very high. A couple of streets have been shaped in this way, but two more were intended for pedestrians, so the budget was too high.

The New York model

The building has explained that they were looking at different models of very different places and at the end they have wagered on what they've seen in a neighborhood in New York. Almost without the need to move around, not level the ground, or put the tile... It is enough to leave almost what was there, to erase the signs and lines that were there for the traffic, to paint the ground and to put two or three benches! Without spending an immense fortune, the residents are offered the possibility to walk more calmly around them and, by the way, encourage them to make their life in the neighborhood. In short, rather than influencing the forms of mobility of citizenship, the important thing is to reflect on the cities and peoples we want.