Context
Gdansk has an extensive tram network, still expanding, and important to provide accessibility apart from car mobility. The question is how tram mobility can become increasingly attractive for urban and regional travelling, also in a post(?)-pandemic era. This requires the development of urban public space and infrastructure for a sustainable and resilient city in the future.
Doing What?
The (currently greenfield) area within Oliwa's tramline's reversing loop (about 3 500 m2 empty space), will continue to transform into a 'green waiting room', a square in the form of a multimodal node: tram, light rail, buses, taxis, bikes; scooters, shared cars, through a co-creation process, prototyping public space, generating various prototypes, which will be assessed.
Learning what?
The experiment seeks to learn (1) how co-created public space and non-car mobility can be developed to achieve resilient and sustainable urban infra and space, in a safe process adapted to pandemic restrictions. (2) how this can be used in other places in the city.
Who is involved?
Gdansk University of Technology, City of Gdansk, Community of Gdańsk Foundation (CGF), Olivia Business Centre (OBC). The city brings in policymakers, CGF brings in residents into the experiments, while OBC brings in business travellers (i.e. commuters).
How are the experiments 'better-embedded'? (general)
The general approach here is that the experiment is better embedded in a (broader than currently customary) learning network or 'learning community' with citizens, urban planners & policymakers and other relevant stakeholders, divided into two groups: Lab participants and a Lab reflection group. They jointly formulate learning questions and monitor the lessons learnt.
How are the experiments 'better-embedded'? (city-specific)
The learning network around the experiment includes senior urban planners, travellers, residents, representatives of OBC, and public transport operators. The lessons learnt from the ULL can be used for the redevelopment of public space and the embedding of non-car infra in many other places in Gdansk.
How is the impact of the experiment evaluated, both in terms of learning processes and policy mix?
We evaluate the learning processes and the impact of the experiment on the urban (mobility) policy mix through:
(1) Before-and-after stakeholder workshops (with participants and a reflection group) will inquire into (first) expected and (later) experienced challenges and learning outcomes of the experiment.
(2) Individual semi-structured interviews with a representative share of participants and reflection group members, and also policymakers who were neither participants nor reflection group members.
(3) Ethnographic work (already ongoing) will study qualitative change in the learning network engaged in the experiment.
How does the experiment support transformative capacity?
Our approach extends learning processes beyond the small group of enthusiastic lab practitioners with a reciprocal effect: it draws on questions and knowledge from the (potentially conflicting) established policy and planning logics, yet, at the same time, includes a broader range of stakeholders it diffuses the lab lessons better into the mainstream policy development community. We test how this learning network enhances the transformative capacity of the city.