The Mobility Plan (2017)

Why?

Ghent is a vivid, vibrant and growing city. A busy city like Ghent has plenty of advantages but also a number of challenges, because the pressure on the city keeps on growing. For this reason, the city council introduced an updated mobility plan in 2017.

What is it?

The Mobility Plan was a positive reply to various questions and challenges. Less traffic pressure leads to safer squares and streets as well as a more attractive environment to live, work or study in. The plan ensured that Ghent stayed accesible and nice to live and work in.

The larger, more theoretic Mobility Plan entailed two parts, namely a Circulation Plan and a Parking Plan.

Circulation Plan

After surveying, counting en measuring several metrics in the years leading up to the launch of the Circulation plan, city services made some interesting discoveries: more than 4 out of 10 cars were driving straight through the city center while they don’t have to. The Circulation Plan prevents this transit traffic from entering the city center. This way, pedestrians, cyclists, buses and trams will get more space and drivers who really need to be in the city can easily reach their destination.

This lead to the Circulation Plan upholding a few important principles:

• the restricted traffic area is going to be extended.
• The city center is going to be divided in 6 sections surrounding the restricted traffic area.
• Car traffic that does not need to be in the city center can go from section to section through the inner ring (R40).
• Car traffic that needs to go from municipality to municipality, is being encouraged to take the main ring road (R4).

Read more about the plan.

Parking Plan

There are too few parking spaces for the amount of cars in Ghent. With the Parking Plan, the City of Ghent aimed to deal efficiently and wisely with the available parking spaces. In general: “The further away from the center, the lower the tariffs”. 

On the edge of the city, there are park-and-rides (P+R). These parking spaces are without cost in most cases. At these park-and-rides, you can easily switch to public transport or bicycles. 

​A few important principles:

• More areas were to be reserved for resident parking. This way, residents easily find a parking space close to their home.
• Parking spaces on the street were to be divided in four zones. Each zone has its own tariffs, which will get lower the further you are removed from the city center. This gives people who only want to park for a short time the chance to find a parking space faster. Parking on resident parking spaces is prohibited when you are not a resident.
• The underground parkings of the City of Ghent were divided in two groups: cheaper parkings (Ramen, Savaanstraat, Sint-Pietersplein and Tolhuis) and more expensive parkings where short-term parking is being encouraged by making long-term parking more expensive (Sint-Michiels, Reep and Vrijdagmarkt). In addition, you can also park at Zuid, Kouter and Center Parking, which are not managed by the City of Ghent.