Mitma awards 500 million euros to 120 municipalities to decarbonize their urban centers and promote sustainable mobility

• The Palentine capital receives 2,966,744´70 euros for actions aimed at improving air quality and noise reduction. • The provisionally selected actions are aimed at promoting active mobility with the construction of pedestrian zones and itineraries, the promotion of bicycle use and measures to calm road traffic. • The control system of Low Emission Zones, the pedestrianisation of the environments of the Four Cantons, the urban regeneration of Calle Mayor Antigua and Plaza de Cervantes and the extension of the bicycle parking network will benefit from this aid from the Government of Spain.

Palencia, April 27, 2023.- The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (Mitma) has provisionally granted 500 million euros from the European NextGenerationEU recovery funds to 120 municipalities throughout Spain, in which some 18 million people live, to decarbonize transport and promote active and sustainable mobility in urban centers. Thanks to this aid, the Ministry will cofinance 432 actions aimed at the purchase of electric city buses, the deployment of bike lanes, the pedestrianisation of streets, the digitalization of mobility services or the implementation of low-emission zones, among other projects.

The Palentine capital will receive a total of 2,966,744´70 euros destined to the improvement of air quality and the reduction of noise in its urban center. To this end, the Government of Spain has favourably estimated an amount of 1,283,029´20 euros for the System of access control, signaling and management of Low Emission Zones.

Another of the outstanding performances focuses on the pedestrianisation of the Streets Burgos, Don Sancho, La Cestilla, Plaza Isabel La Católica, Menéndez Pelayo and Antonio Maura for an amount of 677,700´00 euros.

For the urban regeneration project of sections of Calle Mayor Antigua and Plaza de Cervantes a total of 549,000 euros are allocated and, finally, for the extension of the network of safe bicycle parking the amount amounts to 457,015´50 euros.

The execution deadline for the actions to be carried out in the Palentine capital ends on December 31, 2024.

The Ministry has provisionally selected these 432 projects from among the 679 applications submitted by a total of 188 potential beneficiaries of the program: municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, provincial capitals and municipalities of localities with more than 20,000 inhabitants that have an internal urban public transport service, and have a Sustainable Mobility Plan. The call has been held in a competitive competition, so the actions that have obtained the highest score based on criteria of maturity, impact, quality and relevance have been selected.

This provisional resolution corresponds to the second call for proposals of the program of aid to municipalities for the implementation of low-emission zones (ZBE) and the digital and sustainable transformation of urban transport, included in component 1 of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR). Thus, the EUR 500 million awarded in this second resolution is added to the EUR 1 billion distributed in first call throughout 2022.

In addition, as foreseen in Article 4 of the Ministerial Order of 21 July 2022, Mitma could extend the budget of this aid by up to 50 million euros depending on the available credits. In view of this eventuality, the provisional resolution incorporates in Annex I.2 a list of applications dismissed due to credit exhaustion that could be beneficial in the event that such budgetary expansion finally occurs. In this scenario, the list of beneficiary municipalities would be increased following the order of priority established according to the assigned score.

The aim of the aid programme is to contribute to improving air quality in cities and the decarbonisation of mobility. To this end, the selected initiatives promote the promotion of reliable, affordable, attractive and zero-emission urban public transport systems, as well as the promotion of active mobility (cycling, walking) to reduce the use of the private motor vehicle.