Sustainable mobility tour - project results (new)

Both the Bulgarian and the Turkish part of the bike trip and guide book delivery tour went very well. In fact, they went better than I could have even hoped.

In both countries, the mayors and vice-mayors kindly accepted me into their environments. The other people I encountered along the way were also very helpful, both those that had been organized from Sofia or Istanbul, or those just met by happenstance.

Shortly after my visit to the town hall of Sinop, they contacted my partners with a request for a feasibility study for a mobility/transportation project to be conducted in their town! This is one of the early good news outcomes.

Also in Sofia, the partner organization I worked with was invited to the city's ecological commission, which was quite happy to accept and recommend the bicycle plan that had been submitted for the city of Sofia.

Eventual follow-up work with the different towns visited will hopefully be one way to even further establish both working relations with the municipalities as well as encourage them to consider moving their towns in the direction of greater sustainability.

The partners I worked with did a wonderful job: They succeeded to get the guidebook translated and printed, and they were able to do all the necessary preparations for meeting with the municipalities along the way.

My partners in Bulgaria were Za Zemiata (For the Earth) and in Turkey included Turkish Bicycle Federation, Turkish Young Greens, Traffic Association, and several individuals.

My special thanks for making this a successful project (with the hopes for continued collaboration) go to: Elitsa Grancharova and Vanya Boneva in Sofia. Tuna Türkmen, Dilek Özkan, Kevser Ustundağ and Murat Suyabatmaz in Istanbul.

Many others helped in many different ways, for which I am also thankful. And the project is not even really over.