Environmental Friendly Transportation in the City of Malmo

This month at the Shanghai World Expo, the south Swedish city of Malmo is showing off its ability to operate a smooth public tranportation system.

As we hear from He Fei, Malmo is now displaying its current theme, Urban Everyday Travel, at the Expo's Urban Best Practices Area.

You don't need a car to live in Malmo. It owns thanks to efficient transportation, good bicycle tracks, proximity to the railway, and several walking routs.

Maria Brodde Makri, head of traffic transportation division in streets and park department in Malmo, says their transportation plan is made environmental friendly.

"We work with special plans not only for car traffic, but also for public transport traffic, but also for bicycle traffic, and the newest plan we have will be for pedestrian traffic."

In Malmo, public transportation is encouraged. The bus connections in Malmo are very frequent, as often as every five minutes at peak times. And at certain junctions, buses have priority and the traffic lights change to green faster than for other motorists. What's more, Maria says a new city tunnel will come into function at the end of this year which will be much faster and more environmental friendly.

As a cycle friendly city, Malmo owns quite a lot of cycle paths which is attractive to cyclists. Apart from this, Maria says they create more convenience for bicycling.

"We work for bicycle planning, and we try to make it direct, connected with no missing links and safe. We work with bicycle garages. We work with parking houses for bicycles (to make it) close to the railway stations. "

But cars cannot be avoided at a city. Maria says they promote the use of environmental friendly cars a lot. For example, the parking fees for environmental friendly cars such as electric car are very low compared to parking fees for normal cars.

Having transportation environmental friendly, Malmo not only makes adults realize it, but also children. Lotta Cederfeldt is a School Adviser of Traffic Environment Section.

"Most children in Sweden live close to the school. We try to teach children that it's better to walk to school instead of going by car with their parents. We try to encourage family to help each other. One family will take the children that live in the same streets to walking to school. If they have to take the car, then we want many children in the car."

In order to decrease car use, Lotta says they have already reduced car trips in all the schools that they work with. It is also good for children's safety since cars are parked blocks away.

Now more and more people use bicycles in Malmo. It is estimated that almost 40% of people in this city now commuting to work with bicycle.

For CRI, I'm Hefei.