EcoMobility World Festival 2015: The First 10 Days

The EcoMobility World Festival 2015 is ongoing in Johannesburg, South Africa, but the first week has already brought plenty of excitement and news. Here are some of our highlights!

Festival Voices

Our team on the ground has been interviewing residents and visitors to Sandton to find out what they think of the Festival. Follow the links to read more:

Festival Voices, 3 October: “People need to have confidence about their safety”	Festival Voices, 4 October: “I’m here because I’m a Joburger”	Festival Voices, 6 October: “It is important that leaders are not just preaching messages but actually doing it in their daily life”
Festival Voices, 7 October: “I have never been on a bus before!”	Festival Voices, 8 October: “People still use the sidewalk and not the whole street.”	Festival Voices, 9 October: “The term EcoMobility sums it up”

Dialogues and Declaration

A range of workshops and sessions were hosted as part of the EcoMobility Dialogues, bringing together experts on sustainable urban mobility from around the world. We reported on a number of sessions:

• Transport Demand Management Workshop
• How to reshape a city through EcoMobility
• Huge success at the Imbizo with the Mayor of Joburg
• Achieving and enabling EcoMobility: New and shared forms of mobility
• Technical experts meeting: The future of mobility
• Ecomobility is the recipe for bridging the transport and climate change divide
• Making the commuting decision safe, sustainable and popular

At the end of the week, city representatives officially adopted the Johannesburg Declaration on EcoMobility in Cities. The Declaration urges all spheres of government to prioritize sustainable urban mobility by agreeing to bold decisions for ambitious actions at the UNFCCC Climate Summit (COP21) in Paris in December 2015, and the Habitat III Conference in Quito in October 2016. Through the declaration, city leaders also committed to adopting a number of urban mobility policies in areas including public transport, quality and safety, low carbon vehicles and urban space.

Media Coverage

The EcoMobility World Festival 2015 was featured in a range of national and international press outlets. Here are some of our favorite stories:

• Actor Danny Glover support EcoMobility drive
• The wheels come off as Sandton goes walkabout
• Some bumps‚ but EcoMobility World Festival well received
• Sandton commuters say ‘so far so good’
• What Sandton’s future could look like
• EcoMobility: It’s about community, not cars

Top Tweets

Joburg residents and visitors weighed in with some great feedback using the #JoburgEcoMobility and #EcoMobilityFestival hashtags. Here are some of the most popular:

Our PR exec @JonathanDucie catching the @TheGautrain into Sandton. Doing his part for the #EcoMobilityFestival pic.twitter.com/XmtuDN25d5

— NGAGE (@ngageeveryone) October 6, 2015

Way to go Sandton! People are actually not using their cars #sandtoncentral #ecomobilityfestival pic.twitter.com/3VzCEIikRr

— Nomali Mndebele (@Nomali_) October 7, 2015

Our CEO Adrian Gore always leads by example. In the spirit of #JoburgEcoMobility month, he cycled to work today. pic.twitter.com/aYJZPfVBbL

— @Discovery_SA (@Discovery_SA) October 9, 2015

Innovative, creative,appropriate education critical to changing the way we move #Joburgecomobility @CityofJoburgZA https://t.co/SDel8kf85g

— TheColouredCube (@colouredcube) October 8, 2015

Over 4000 cyclists where at the @FreedomRideJozi #Joburgecomobility @CityofJoburgZA pic.twitter.com/rHhX9JNPjg

— JoburgEcomobility (@jhbecomobility) October 11, 2015

@CityofJoburgZA ExecMayor @CllrParksTau waiting to catch a Rea Vaya to Auckland Park. #Joburgecomobility pic.twitter.com/eW7VIF0woM

— Phindile Chauke (@NewzJournalist) October 13, 2015

Videos

Some great summary videos were produced by Joburg Today on the EcoMobility World Festival 2015:

More Information 

• Official summary of the first week of the EcoMobility World Festival 2015
• ICLEI Flickr with wide range of photos
• EcoMobility World Festival Blog
• Twitter: @ecomobility_ @ICLEI @CityofJoburgZA @jhbecomobility #JoburgEcoMobility #EcoMobilityFestival