EXISTING POLICY FRAMEWORK TO SUPPORT THE ACTIVE MOBILITY IN BULGARIA. STRATEGIES AND REGULATIONS IN VARNA

Abstract

Active mobility, active travel, active transport, and active transportation are synonyms of transport of people that only use their physical activity for the need to travel. The most known forms of active mobility are walking and cycling, though the skateboard, kick scooter or roller skates are also a form of active mobility. The city of Varna is the third largest city in Bulgaria and the largest seaside city in the country. In the high tourist season, the city shows much more street problems than usual. The congestion seems to be greater each and every year and this affects active transportation. As a result of the dominant character of the private car in our everyday life, it seems that the active forms of transport are being neglected. To change this trend an integrated transport policy is required where the pedestrians will be placed in the center of the daily agenda. One of the very important components to support active mobility is the policy framework. It should guarantee that all forms of active mobility have also rights as users of the streets and are not neglected in the planning process. The current study aims to analyze the existing relevant national and local (for the city of Varna) regulations regarding walking and cycling and to evaluate the degree of policy support in order to respect their rights and needs. The existences of the relevant policies and how they are implemented is a matter of the study. The collected data about the regulatory framework is evaluated using the content analysis method.