www.business-review.eu Business Review | August 2020
COVER STORY 11
Bucharest transitions to a smarter urban future After four years at the helm of Romania’s capital city, Bucharest General Mayor Gabriela Firea sat down with Business Review and told us about some of the projects which have made Bucharest a smarter city during her tenure and how important it is for local authorities to have a clear, long-term urban strategy in order to keep up with the city’s development. By Anda Sebesi Bucharest has recently been named one of the best cities in Europe in which to work from home. However, it is not yet a fully digitalized city, and the issues caused by traffic and crowding are affecting everybody in the city. How has Bucharest evolved over the last 10-20 years, what has been done so far, and what should have been done?
related concepts. The Integrated
The city’s sustainable development
long: the General Urban Plan of the
involves finding a balance between
Municipality of Bucharest. Without
the current situation – which in
a carefully planned project, the
many respects is unfavourable –
city’s development would come
projects which have been started
to a standstill. Therefore, we have
but not yet completed, and future
taken all the necessary steps and
plans. It doesn’t matter how good
given all due diligence in order to
of a vision the mayor has; if it can-
eliminate roadblocks and to give
not be translated into something
this project the boost it needs. I
practical through well-articulated
hope to be able to share it with all
strategies, failure will be inevitable.
interested parties as soon as pos-
That is why, before I even started
sible. My conclusion after these
Air Quality Plan has also been approved, consisting of a clear set of measures to reduce pollution in the city in the coming years. We have a Heating Strategy, a Smart City Strategy, as well as interconnected documents to help us determine which steps we need to take in order to reach our objectives. Last but not least is a project which has been underway for too
four years is that a single term as
implementing the bold projects I had imagined for Bucharest, I had to adopt a very methodical way of
mayor is not enough to develop the city – only to manage it. Only a
working. We looked at all the projects that had been started by my
second term can determine the skill and vision of a mayor. Things
predecessors and had been left stranded at various stages. Where
are very clear for me now. I know exactly where I’m starting from,
possible, we cleared the obstacles, and many of these projects have
what I have to do, what resources I need, but also the conditions I
either been successfully completed or are close to being finished. At
must deal with.
the same time, we have been working on strategies meant to serve as frameworks for the next 20-30 years, which have been approved by the General Council following many public debates.
What are the more detailed plans for infrastructure, consolidation, transport? Public transport was a priority of my first term as general mayor, this
What are the urban development plans for the next 20-30 years that could transform the city into a real European metropolis?
being the key to solving two major problems in Bucharest: traffic and
We have a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan, which sets priorities for
port fleet, which no longer met the demands of a European capital.
urban development until 2030. It is a multidisciplinary plan, which
Despite the obstacles raised by cumbersome and somewhat confus-
includes infrastructure works, modernising public transport, devel-
ing legislation, we managed to renew the STB fleet with 830 vehicles.
oping alternative means of transport, and implementing smart city-
We have also continued to expand the smart traffic lights project.
pollution. In 2016, we found an insufficient, outdated public trans-
