Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Smart in the City the BABLE Podcast where we bring together top actors in the smart city arena, sparking dialogues and interactions around the stakeholders and themes most prevalent for today's citizens and tomorrow's generations.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: I am your host Tamlyn Shimizu and I hope you will enjoy this episode, and gain knowledge and connections to accelerate the change for a better urban life.
Smart in the City is brought to you by BABLE Smart Cities. We enable processes from research and strategy development to co creation and implementation. To learn more about us, please visit the BABLE platform at BABLE SmartCities EU.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: So welcome everyone to actually our second episode focusing on the city of Vilnius, a city I've actually had the privilege of visiting for the first time recently. Highly recommend. By the way, in my first conversation I was in Vilnius and I was speaking with a former mayor about regulatory reform, transparency and governance transformation. So today we shift the perspective a little bit. We're taking a closer look at sustainability leadership, climate policy and implementation and how Vilnius is operationalizing its ambition to be a European green capital.
So joining me today, please give a warm welcome to Anton Nicotine, the Chief Sustainability Officer at the City of Vilnius in Lithuania. Welcome Antonio.
[00:01:31] Speaker C: Hello. Good to see you.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: Good to see you too. We actually had the privilege of briefly meeting in Lodz, but we didn't get the chance to really deep dive into everything you're working on. I'm really excited to hear from you how you're really turning all these lofty and ambitious climate plans into actionable outcomes on the ground, or at least trying to and putting it all into action.
But first, I like to get us started with a little bit of a teaser, a warm up, quick question to get us started. And for you, I have today, if you had to describe Vilnius's sustainability approach in just three words, what would those three words be?
[00:02:15] Speaker C: I'd still say it's a greenest city in the making.
It's actually our slogan for the year of being European Green Capital.
We actually have this slogan as an official one.
It's actually two part slogan. One is we're not the greenest city yet and then it comes with greenest city in the making. So I think for us, sustainability is more of a process oriented thing which we really want to do.
It's not like we want to do it slow because there's so much things happening around and there is so many things changing and we see a lot of climate change consequences that are already happening on our daily life.
But that process is nonetheless important so that we have more consensus and More understanding why we do that. It's not just doing that.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: Five words. But not three. But I give it to you, those are small.
[00:03:22] Speaker C: Sorry.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, we don't count in. And the. That's okay, right? Yeah, no worries. No worries.
Good. I want to get to know you a little bit better. Give us a little bit of background on your role, where you came from. Also, how did you enter into the field?
[00:03:41] Speaker C: So, yeah, I'm. As a chief sustainability officer, that's quite a new position for the city. It's been one and a half years and before that there were no such position at the city administration. So that's kind of a new thing for us on one hand. But I've been working with different sustainability topics for almost a decade now. I'd say I started working for the city as a chief officer for cycling infrastructure or cycling officer. Then one thing led to another. I was doing cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, then all the sustainable mobility.
Then I took on a job of chief city engineer of planning all the infrastructure for the city. And then eventually there was a need for this kind of position. And my knowledge of understanding the sustainability in a very general sense and understanding how the city works and operates was a very good fit. And I'm really glad I'm here now with a very broad topic, a very complex topic, but it's what it makes us exciting.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Maybe also a little follow up on that. I love how you've gone from micro to macro, but sustainability is such a topic, as you mentioned, it's broad. What does sustainability really mean to you?
[00:05:10] Speaker C: I mean, we can talk about very classical understanding that sustainability is these environmental, social and governance topics or the targets we see. So it's not only the environment or the green part which we really understand about sustainability, but it's also the very social thing and the way we achieve those. Those targets. But for me, sustainability is actually really corresponds on a city level and on a very, on a very personal level. It's. It's about quality of living. It's actually about making our environment not only livable and survivable due to climate change, but also a very, you know, more and more livable because more of us live in the cities and more of us, you know, want to live a very good life there.
So. So yeah, that's what sustainability is for me.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: Yeah, very well put.
Also Vilnius right now is currently the holding, holding the title of European Green Capital.
What does this recognition mean in practical terms and how are you transl that into measurable outcomes for residents?
[00:06:26] Speaker C: So I call this, sometimes I joke about it, then I call this Eurovision of Green Cities. And we happen to win, you know, because that's how it works.
Yeah, that's how it actually works. You just, you fill in the form, you fill in the application, which is actually quite a, quite a big document which you have to show what you've done so far and what's your commitment for the future and what your ideas are. You know, how do you, how do you show that you are a green city and then European Commission awards this title to you. So they kind of recognized our ambition and also the things we've been doing for quite, you know, quite some time now, I'd say almost a decade. So, so there's a lot of, you know, small sustainable actions, smaller or bigger ones as well. So, so there is a lot we, we're doing and as, as for a very practical thing, I think this, this boosts understanding of sustainability among citizens. And I think we usually know, especially those who work in sustainability, they, they tend to look at it from kind of, I wouldn't say a technical perspective, but from a very, you know, planned. And here's the target. You are reaching it. I don't know, you are, you know, want to make your transport emission free or your heating sector emission free and so on, and you're just moving towards it and that's how it's achieved.
But on the whole city level, and my idea is that we really have to think about the human side of sustainability and how do we talk with the people and citizens.
And that's the main target we kind of have internally especially, obviously there are targets and indicators that we have to measure. The air quality, the water quality, the biodiversity and stuff, which we also do measure.
But then again, the main idea for us is actually have as many conversations as possible with our citizens so that we have them on board on these topics. Because these topics are on a very general understanding. I don't think there is anybody who would say, who wouldn't say that, well, being a green cities is a bad thing.
But when it comes to, you know, to change of their habits to their daily choices, to what not, then there is, you know, that devil in the details.
So we want to have these conversations and they're very frank conversations on smaller and bigger scales on a very neighborhood level and sometimes, you know, just a small level or on a city wide discussion as we're going to, for instance, we're going to have this first citizens assembly this year, this autumn. So there is, you know, there is different scales about Talking about that and also different topics from sustainable fashion to cycling. It's like all range of topics want to do that. So that's what we're focusing on mostly is having these talks.
Not necessarily they will bring the instant results, but we feel like we really need to involve and have these open conversations.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I love your human approach.
It's been debated. Right on. It's kind of a tricky time when we're talking about sustainability and green policies right now with the current political climate, all of these things, people might argue there's trade offs when you talk about implementing green policies, regulations, maybe in some cases higher costs, people have to change their lifestyles. Right. And change what they know.
So how do you really ensure that your sustainability agenda doesn't alienate certain groups or create unintended social or economic barriers?
[00:10:39] Speaker C: I mean, that's a million euro question, I guess. And for all of us, we, but that's, but that's, I think where our approach to really try as hard as possible and it's not always successful. You know, I could be saying that, yeah, whatever we do, it's a very successful. And we usually, you know, when we talk about good examples, it looks like, well, it was easy, you know, to achieve, but usually this is perfect.
I mean it is, it is in a way. But on the other hand, you know, there is, there's always a process behind that. And I feel like having, having citizen involvement is the key there.
Because even though on a lot of cases we come up with similar results, we would come up by ourselves.
But then you have people on board, you know, in the end. And that really works, you know, on so many different levels. On the level where we were when we're designing a new street or a new park, right. And then we, the history showed that, you know, for a, for a lot of time we've been designing it by ourselves, by the city or the architects or who else would be designing the things on a street level. But then, but then, you know, you come and because there are procedures, official ones, you have to, you know, kind of talk with people and introduce the plans and then the people are like, no, we don't want that change.
But if we really take time with these processes of involvement and of course there are really different ways to involve. And also not all the decisions are up to this really big consensus and really deep conversation and so on, because not everybody have time to do that as well. So that's another thing. But when you go through the process, then you come up with the best ideas. You could at the time, and then you have people on board. So there's that.
And of course, sustainability.
In quite some cases it means changes on a personal level.
But from the city perspective, when we look at it, for instance, I'd go to the transport sector, right.
So for us, it's actually providing the alternative, the full range of alternatives to majority of people or to basically all the people, and making the city less dependable on only one mean of transportation, which is usually cars. Right. What cities with, for the past almost 100 years been developing into that direction to make it accessible, basically only by cars. So from the city perspective, it's actually looking at, okay, we do want to provide all the alternatives, all the possible alternatives there, and then it's up to the people's choices. But of course there should be some things, and those are hard political decisions. If there is, you know, the carrot and the stick. So. So we are still working more on the carrots than the sticks, I'd say.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: Yeah, really interesting. Let's dive into that a little bit more on how you're activating citizen participation. Are there specific tools, different channels that you're using?
How, how, what are all the different methods you're using?
[00:14:22] Speaker C: So I mean, the main method is whenever we design something or we want to redo something in, and it's not like just fixing something, but like redesigning and rethinking.
So the main method is now more or less start with an early stage to get the, you know, have several meetings with the community or with the stakeholders and, you know, starting with just the idea of redesigning and then getting to know what they, how they use the space and what they want to see there.
And they were, you know, on the street level sometimes it's like everybody wants everything, you know, everybody wants cars, trees, bicycle lanes, you know, as many car lanes as possible. So, you know that like people want everything. But then, okay, you just collect that and then, or you just go to workshop and say, okay, let's fit that into, I don't know, 12 meters, which is impossible to fit all of that. And then, then people start to think and then, you know, they, we don't want them to come up with the designs. Obviously, that's what people who do that. But then again, there is another meeting when we, okay, we come with several designs or several ideas how we can change that. And then we discuss. So it's several stage discussion on these kind of levels. Sometimes it's just more like an informational one. We want to, in some Soviet era, build up areas. We just are fixing the parking spaces and we just say, okay, we're going to fix that. Maybe you have ideas where to better do that because you use that daily. And then people say, yeah, you should just put something there, here and there, and that's it. And then we just do it like that.
And sometimes it's, as I already mentioned, a bigger one, like a citizens assembly, which is a really structured way of selecting for us. It will be 50 randomly selected citizens from different social groups, age groups and so on, so that we have all the representation of the city. And they will discuss the mobility topic as well. That's, you know, we have basically two main topics in our sustainability agenda in general, because of the greenhouse gas emissions, it's transport and energy sectors, which contribute to more than 90% of our CO2 emissions. So. So these are two sectors we really have to work on. And therefore, you know, the mobility topic will be raised on the citizens assembly. So the people will meet seven times through the span of four or five months and they will come up with a resolution. They will vote on that. They will draft the text themselves. They will be informed, of course, before that about different opinions and different ideas and different scientific and just stakeholder ideas about different ways of moving around the city. And they will come up with informed resolution and ideas. How do we really go towards reaching our goals in mobility? We have the goals to really change the way we move around the city.
We've done quite some good job in cycling numbers, but other numbers are not as good as we would like them to see so that the movement around the city is more balanced.
So, yeah, so there are really different methods for every case. And yeah, I'm glad we have also a person responsible for citizen involvement in the administration.
And that's really beautiful, so that people dedicated to that and they go through the process together.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: Can you give one or two concrete examples of projects that you're working on, especially if you want to highlight the community engagement piece? But any kind of project that you're quite passionate about that you think would be interesting to share.
[00:18:35] Speaker C: I mean.
Oh, that's a good question.
With the community engagement, I think the citizen assembly, I'm really passionate about it. I'm really waiting for the results and I'm really looking forward to it. And it's our first time we do that. And from what we've seen around, you know, from the examples, it's not a new thing. You know, cities or countries have been doing the citizens assemblies.
But I'm really looking forward to really see, because that's a topic that actually puts quite a lot of citizens into, you know, this love, hate, relationship or black and white and so on. And there is, you know, so many different colors of that. And that's actually one of the learning experience from the city of Vilnius. We've been doing quite some changes on the street level.
For instance, during the last political period before the election and then during the election, you know, all the sustainable initiatives were really used against, against us, I'd say, in a way, because the discussion got really political.
The discussion really got, you know, in some cases out of hand because even though we were, you know, when you do street redesign, you want, you know, street to be more appealing with more greenery, with lower speeds and so on. And then there are quite some people that feel threatened of that, which is also natural. If they drive the car, they are used to speed on that street and now they can't and they become angry and underestimating their feelings and their emotions was actually quite a big learning experience for us. So it's like it's looking and for the ways to really understand how do we communicate with them and what do we do. Because sometimes, you know, to be frank now we sometimes really are way slower than we would be with some of our decisions, especially in mobility, on mobility topic, because there is this a bit of a, you know, us as a city or city officials or politicians being a bit, I wouldn't call it afraid, but hesitant to make too quick decisions or too harsh decisions.
So yeah, there is that.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Yeah, you've spoken about mobility and street redesign. I'm just wondering if I'm really interested to also learn a little bit more about what, what projects you're working on as far as energy directly.
Do you have an example from your.
[00:21:31] Speaker C: Work there on the energy sector?
I think we're doing quite good, especially on the central heating and on the electricity level. So there are good things we can really be proud of. So one thing is that, for instance, all our streets are lit by renewable energy. Half of the municipal buildings, buildings are the electricity that is there is also from renewables. And we're, you know, working on the. On the other half of that.
So. So there is that on a central heating level. We also have quite good results and, and the company is moving towards being climate neutral by 2030 because now we only use, as of last year, we used only 17% of of the fuel was natural gas. Other fuel was.
The rest 83% was biomass and biofuel. So which is a renewable. So so that's, that's quite a big achievement for us. And then most of the dwellings are connected to the central heating. So it's like we are really in a well spread there and. Yeah, and that's, you know, just a question of time and small initiatives and small things that are needed to be done so that now it's small things. But that's also, you know, from the energy perspective, looking from the energy perspective for us it's also part of our independence agenda or resilience, geopolitical resilience agenda as well. So it's like that as well, big time. And we're glad we, you know, we kind of been moving towards that. Even before sustainability was cool, right before.
Even before everybody talked about that.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: It's cool now. I think, I think it's a little.
[00:23:23] Speaker C: Bit, well, sometimes it's also overused now. I'd say the sustainability, it's also another big topic because everybody wants to be sustainable and there is a lot of greenwashing there as well. And I can't say we don't do some of the greenwashing as well. So it's like at some point there is this blurred lines, right. But from going back to the energy sector, so, so there's a lot of that and there are small initiatives which are really significant. So, so two things which blow my mind every time. So one is that they take the residual heat from the smoke that comes out of chimneys because the smoke is warm. So they take that residual heat and then use it through the system. So that's one part. And another part is they are just signed the agreement with, with our data centers where servers would produce a lot of heat and they will take that heat and also use that for city heating. So, so that's, you know those, those are just a small fraction, but I mean, but those are really, you know, I, I think that these kind of things, it's just looking, and the sustainability is also about this systemic approach and looking at all the things and you just, you know, there, there's, you know, otherwise there is this heat from the service which just goes to air and we can just use it because you know, know it's, it's, it's there, it's, it's, it's, it's free, it's basically free energy.
So these kind of things. I, I, I really, I really, yeah, love about that.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Yeah, really great examples. Thanks for sharing in your work. I'm sure that you encounter many misconceptions as well.
I think we were like briefly touching on some stuff. But I, I would love to hear from you what you think are the biggest misconceptions that you encounter when it takes to becoming a truly sustainable city.
[00:25:29] Speaker C: That's actually a really good question. I mean, on one hand misconception is that sustainability is expensive.
And I'd say yes, it is expensive on quite some cases because sometimes infrastructural change is quite expensive because you know, we've been worried working with infrastructure which was not prepared for that.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Cost though, right? It's like upfront cost but then in general you, you get the money back over time.
[00:26:01] Speaker C: Yes, that thing.
And, and then. Yeah, yeah, so, so that. But also on the other hand, a lot of sustainability is about these creative solutions and like looking at efficiency and how we effectively use our resources and sometimes we just don't think about that.
We've just had a talk with a colleague that there's the office building near us which is now just now putting the solar panels on the roof and we're like, yeah, why don't they all do that? Right.
So it's like it's the investment which, which really is now super cheap and produces quite a lot of energy. And yes, there are a lot of questions with the grids and then so on. So there's, you know, there are technical questions which are, you know, relevant and so on. But in general it's looking, looking for these kind of, I'd say solutions, the effective ones. But the cost is also. We never cost, we never, when we talk about sustainability and say yes, it's expensive, we never estimate how much it would cost us in the future to do the same thing.
When, you know, when it's. Well now it sometimes feels urgent. For Vilnius, for instance, we had, it's hard to talk about the warmth or the heat waves and so on because we had a really cold June which is, we would say we call it cold June, but then it's so close to the normal average.
So we are so expecting to have a warmer June. Right. So it's like really interesting thought process on one hand. But on the other hand before June we had already 18 anomalies or 18 hottest days, record breaking days in the country. Went through all last year we had only 14 or 15, so we already through, you know, less than half year passed and we broke those records. So, so that's, that's a bit of concerning thing. And of course for us maybe we, we don't have, you know, such big problems with the heat because.
Yes, well, next week we're gonna have 33 degrees. So that's, that's quite hot. And then we, you know, only for the past couple decades started to have these tropical nights when during the nighttime the temperature doesn't drop less than 30 or 20 something degrees. So it's these kind of things.
So I think investing into mitigation later will be way more expensive than investing now.
And also not being prepared and not investing today means also other costs. Okay, heat waves is one thing, but another, for instance for US climate change consequence is the flooding risks which will cost a lot of money to, you know, if that happens, if we are not prepared enough, if we do not invest enough into both infrastructure but also the nature based solutions so that we can keep that water somewhere and you know, and then just not get flooded.
So there's that, you know, so, so that will cost us in, in insurance money, in, in just direct costs of, of taking care of infrastructure after that. And then, you know, and then they're all smaller ones the, the storms and, and what, what not, which will, you know, indirectly also, you know, so the investment with which we are not doing today or the tree which we are, is actually gonna cost us way more in the future.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: I really like that perspective in the way that you're looking at that. I think the challenge is getting people to understand a cost that has not yet incurred.
[00:30:13] Speaker C: And so it's so hard, it's almost impossible.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it's so hard to get people to understand a future cost. Right.
To, to visualize this, to conceptualize this, to put this into numbers and put this into, you know, you can make predictions. And I think a lot of people are doing really great work at making the predictions on the costs in the future. But this hasn't gone mainstream yet. So we need to put this messaging out there.
[00:30:36] Speaker C: Yeah, but I mean, just to add on that, I had this discussion with peers from across the globe on one of the conferences and actually the cities that had some really bad situations or the countries that all of a sudden were not prepared for the, I know, forest fires, for floods or really harsh heat waves like the ones that are, you know, or the droughts or whatever. So then there is this momentum, sadly.
But they all say, yes, that that was the momentum when we really kicked off our climate investments because people really felt the thing. I would like not to come to that moment where that is a momentum, not our common sense or whatever.
But sadly, I think that's also part of human nature. That's us. Not if we don't see the immediate threat that's the future threat, while maybe we'll get over it somehow, you know.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. We need to change this mindset somehow. I just don't know.
[00:31:54] Speaker C: I know, I know.
If any of the listeners know how.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: Please do share, please tell us, please let us know exactly.
Yeah. I want to ask you what you're making really great strides, it sounds like with a lot of the work that you're doing, for example, in energy.
But you still, I'm guessing, have some challenges remaining and I think we've touched on them, but I'd like to dig into that and be very concrete.
What do you think are your main bottlenecks, challenges that are really getting in your way of reaching, for example, climate neutrality by 2030 and are there, are you missing any tools like what do you need to accelerate that? Is it funding, is it more innovation? What do you think you need another million euro question?
[00:32:49] Speaker C: I mean. Yeah, well, that's a billion euro question, I'd say.
Or several billions.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: That's what you need is the several billions and then you're, you're set.
[00:32:59] Speaker C: Yeah. And then it's easy. Right.
On the one hand it is, it is a bit of a financial question. How do we, how do we do the investments? And I mean on quite some levels on, on a city, on the things that city is responsible for really directly. Right. For the, for instance, if it's public transportation, if that's a heating sector, if that's water management or whatever, we, I think we're kind of good and we are planning the investments and we are looking for sources to get those investments financed. And we both, you know, we've prepared the plan for the climate neutrality as part of the EU Cities Mission.
It's 100 cities that are selected to be kind of these pilots for preparing the climate neutrality plans and then see how much money is needed and then what actions are needed. But we also prepared, alongside, we prepared this Green City action plan with the bankable, I'd say investment.
So those are kind of EBRD bank approved investments that we could go and ask for financing with the financial institutions, not only with public funds or semi public funds. So it's like we're looking for different ways of doing these investments.
But I always say that money is the easiest part here.
And I will just keep on coming back to the people side of that or to human side of that.
And I don't feel we still have enough support for our real climate change. Climate, the change for the better environment and climate because that means a lot of change on the personal Level of people.
So for instance, to achieve the goal of being climate neutral in transport sector. Yes, we can do and we will do. We will have all our public transportation carbon or emission free. Right?
We can. But then again there are businesses who have to change and there is, you know, there is no like there is some legislation for we can implement this zero emission zones in the city and so on. But then you know, that's also a political decision.
There's also that. But then again the vast majority of the transport sector is private cars for us. So how do we really make people use cars less first of all. And then if they still use car, use it. Use not a fossil fuel car.
That's another question. And that's a lot of investment from, you know, from their money. And then we can, yeah we do, on the national level we do have some subsidies for acquiring the electric car. They get subsidies for parking in the city. They can use some of the bus lanes in the city. So there are also these soft measures, you know, to do that. But, but then the percentage is still quite small. We're also invest into charging infrastructure so that the people can have some public spaces where they can charge the car overnight. Especially if it's not a newly built up built development which has already possibility to have the charging there. So if it's all the buildup areas we do have to find places for charging.
So there's that part on an energy level that's the same. Okay, we can transform our central heating sector but then again we have a lot of buildings that are energy inefficient and we have to how do we renovate them?
And then that also it's personal cost of people who are counting their own money and having these decisions. And there's quite some big part of that. So I feel like we still have to have more discussions and those take time and have these, this, this really understanding, you know on, on professional level we say it's capacity building, right? It's, it's like you just teach your peers and, and everybody knows. So it's a capacity building within the communities and within the citizens.
And I think that's the main, the main and the hardest part.
And, and yeah, because then, and I feel like if we have most or the vast majority of people on board with their daily choices but also with their understanding on a political level, then it might get easier to kind of. Because the politicians also have to feel the support of people in these actions. And if there is this 50, 50, then it's easy to start doing Just a very small or things like that are the easiest to do. And don't raise too many discussions on the city level. And there are a lot of hard discussions that need to be done.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:38:10] Speaker C: And we're trying to do that this year. We're trying to do those this year and then really go and talk and that's usually not easier.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: Yeah, some very big challenges with the citizen engagement, behavior change piece. I think that all cities are encountering also a shout out to any listeners. Have you solved the. That let us know.
[00:38:33] Speaker C: But I mean, I mean we all know for instance, Paris example. Right. Which, which really used a lot of momentums.
It's, it's also the Olympic Games. They really, you know, really used that for that. But there is also a lot of resistance there as well. So it's, it's like not. We see a lot a very beautiful picture from you know, and then a bit of a jealousy how they did that. But then again we see that there's so many protests about that and so on. And they have reframe what they're doing. And I talked with the colleagues, for instance, about the street redesign. So, so they've been going, yes, let's redesign streets. And then they're like, there's a lot of resistance and they're like, yeah, let's do the school streets now because it's the kids and so on. So it's like also reframing the way you talk.
But then another thing with Paris, which actually really interesting, I think we never take into consideration is that their mayoral term is six years.
So you have kind of enough time between the election cycles to do some change and to have adaptation period. In our case it's four years. So it's like even if you day one start planning something on a very well working system, you can have results year three only. And one year is usually not enough for this adaptation and this seeing the best results time.
So that's also a big challenge I think on a political level. And that's for us, I think as the city, as a civil servants, as the city workers is to kind of be smart as well on preparing the plans for the future. And if there is a good opportunity to just start implementing them day one so that we have enough time. So that's also. It is hard.
It is, is. It also requires a lot of resources. But I think that could be a possibility to work.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: I really like what you touched on as far as reframing how we communicate. I think it's so, so important. I see A lot within our EU kind of mobility bubble of people talking about car free zones and things along those lines. And to me I'm like, it's not a car free zone. It's an area for local business to thrive. Right. This is an area for people and local business to interact on a deeper level rather than saying car free and using words that really resonate with people and across the board on all sorts of the political spectrum. So I really like what you touched on there.
With that we come to the end of our main interview and for Next Step, I have a segment for you. The segment that I've chosen for you today is called Trial and error.
[00:41:29] Speaker B: Trial and error.
[00:41:32] Speaker A: What went wrong?
[00:41:34] Speaker B: What mistakes were made along the way and more importantly, what lessons were learned.
[00:41:42] Speaker A: So it's when you get to share with us maybe a key lesson that you learned along the way.
Have something in mind.
[00:41:52] Speaker C: I think. Yeah, I think it also will be connected with the citizen engagement and not engagement.
I would.
There was this thing, okay, so trying to do that properly.
So we had this idea to have. We have a beautiful old town. If you've been to Vilnius, you know that it's amazing. If somebody haven't been to Vilnius, please do come and enjoy that.
And for, I don't know, maybe two decades, maybe less, in a lot of our plans which were related to mobility or whatsoever or just city general plans, master plan. So, so there was idea to.
To cut the car transit through the Old Town because it was always possibility to, you know, to just go through.
It's a nice scenery, not only to walk, but to go by car as well. And then.
And that way a lot of people were avoiding some of the traffic lights and just, you know, transiting the old town, which is, well, UNESCO protected and stuff. So we had that for a long time in our plans and nobody were making any decision to really start implementing that. But then Covid came fortunately and unfortunately so fortunately because then there was this sudden need which we already forgot, but there was this sudden need for more public spaces for people to go somewhere.
And at the time after I think the first lockdown, the summer came and the city of Vilnius said, okay, if you can't be inside, you know, inside the restaurants and so on, but you can be outside. So let's have Lil nurse and especially the Old Town as the biggest outdoor cafe ever. And we just deregulated all the outdoor cafes and we said, you just bring your tables and you're fine. So just, you know, so that people can just enjoy, you know, and then the businesses can, you know, thrive because those were hard times. And then, then with doing that, we saw that, okay, that transit traffic isn't a nice thing. And people also kind of had that feeling that that transit traffic isn't good, you know, isn't a good thing.
And then there was this idea, maybe we should start and just implement that action of cutting the transit or implementing this loop circulation in the old town. Meaning that you enter through one row road, it's one way street, and then you exit through the nearest exit from the old town and you just can't cross it. So you just make, make it, you know, from, from the different. You can still access it by car, you can still go if you live there and so on, but you can't just, you know, you will have to go around it if you don't need to, you don't need anything to do in the old town. So there was this political support on that as well because, you know, because that was a momentum and we used that and we introduced that loop circulation plan and that worked quite well. It did cut the traffic by 40%. It actually had a good support from businesses, from most of the businesses. And then we did the surveys and then more than 90% of businesses said, yeah, it's a good thing because, well, you know, either due to that or, you know, everything, you know, there is, there are still clients, Nothing, you know, bad is happening because of that. There were some businesses that said, well, because people can't park near my place, they don't go to my place anymore. So which is doubtful always. But then, you know, but that's their feeling and that's also valid, you know, we, I feel we shouldn't invalidate these kind of feelings.
And everything was going quite well.
But what we didn't do, so we didn't sit down with all the stakeholders, which are important.
So one of the stakeholders who were thinking about the businesses were thinking about residents a bit. But we weren't thinking about the heritage protection people who suddenly got angry because we cut the traffic with a very, very basic things. We just put some poles, would just put some planters with the trees so that you can't physically cross between the, the different loops because you know, you just have to organize that. Otherwise if you don't control that, people will still be, I'll go there and then so on.
And another huge, huge group we haven't talked with was the firefighters who were so angry that they can't go through, you know, and they're the emergency service. And so on, and that was, you know, this thing. And then through the same. At the same time, we were doing quite a lot of street reconstructions and, and by reconstructing the street or street redesign, we're really narrowing down the car lanes from a very generous 4, 4.5 meters to these normal 3 or 325 meters so that the cars can go slower and so on.
And then in some places, we didn't design it well enough, and there were some turn radiuses that were too small or, or against the habit of being large and so on. So these kind of things. And then firefighters were angry about that as well.
And then, so a lot of people. And there was this growing momentum of that, and we underestimated that momentum. And we said, well, is that a problem? Because if you're a fire, if you need to go as an emergency service, you can. You can just go through the side part of the sidewalk. You just can. You know, there are some poles which, which. Which can be hit by a fire truck easily and there would be no damage to fire truck, and we're okay with that. And, you know, so these kind of things. And of course, some places we said, yeah, we can, you know, move the planters so that you can go through more easily and so on. So it's like these kind of things. But then, you know, then. Then that kind of thing was the underestimation because we just got to learn eventually when everything a bit went out of hand, when we just understood that there is a huge change in human resources there, in the drivers and the driver that has not enough practice. It's really hard for them to do that and to go around, to go around narrower spaces and so on. So there was that. So there was a lot of, you know, underestimations and not like, you know, having everything. And then again, we kind of made as. As I say, quite some people angry unintentionally. You know, for instance, the cyclists were not happy enough because they were not, you know, some of the surfaces weren't fixed and, you know, and there were no exact plan how, when are we going to fix that? Then the.
I think one of the most important groups we underestimated was the journalists, because most of the journalists, they drive cars and they also all of a sudden felt threatened and so on. So it's like it was all these kind of things we really didn't think through. And I think that's a good learning experience for us now to really think about all the groups which we might not even think directly.
We Were doing everything according to the law on Twitter. This general understanding of, yeah, that's, you know, that's enough to, to go for everybody because that's in some of the technical regulations. But then again, reality is a bit different. So, so, yeah, so then talking and engaging not only, you know, not only citizens, but also the stakeholders, different people. And I feel like with journalists, with sometimes like, like that understanding, because we really do have to understand. Yes, a lot of journalists did. They do move different ways, you know, and then some, some say, you know, their, their daily stories, which are really valid. And they say, I live in this part of the city and if I need to go to work by bus at 5 o' clock in the morning, it's important. It's, it's impossible. It's because it's a morning radio, you know, radio or whatever. And then you're like, yeah, I feel you. That's, that's true. You know, so it's like these kind of things as well.
So I think working with that group, even separately and building capacity there could have been a really good thing which we didn't think through. You know, sitting down with a fire, firefighter department would have also been. Been better. So, so, yeah, so not not taking into consideration all the stakeholders. But then again, you know, then again, it's also a political decision, just not, not even a political, Sometimes it's a technical decision. You just have to do that because you, you know, know, because the results are still here. So we still have the loop circulation plan. That, that's fine. We removed some of the barriers. We, we, you know, we kind of eventually, you know, did a lot of amendment, you know, changes to that, but it took us time as well to understand that we have to do that. So, so we were kind of, you know, we're seeing the good results and we're feeling like everybody, everything is fine when in the background the, the temperature was rising and boiling.
[00:51:41] Speaker A: So yeah, yeah, yeah, really good reminder to consider all the groups and really sit down and think on where, who are really all the stakeholders. Because sometimes we, we just forget about certain groups.
So that's a really good reminder. So thanks so much for sharing that story and the lesson. Now we come to our final question. It's the question we ask every single guest that comes onto the show and it is to you, what is a smart city?
[00:52:08] Speaker C: A smart city?
Well, oh, a smart city.
It's rather an easy question. It's the city where you feel good.
Because I feel like a smart city is not about the technology Again, it's about the people who are happy to live there and who have, of course, technologies can help tremendously in a lot of cases, you know, from online services that you don't need to go anywhere to get your service, to get your whatever done in the city and so on. But the smart city is also the place where you feel good and you have nice environment to live in and nice communities to be there and nice places, good places.
And yeah, for us, it's also green city, so the greenest city in the making.
[00:53:04] Speaker A: Greenest city in the making. I love it. All right, well, thank you so much, Anton. It was really fun talking to you, getting to know more about the news I mentioned at the beginning, but I really, truly fell in love with the city. I was telling everyone this is Europe's best kept secret. You need to go visit Vilnius.
And you're doing amazing things within the sustainability field. So thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and stories with us today.
[00:53:28] Speaker C: Was a pleasure. But also, did you try the pink soup?
[00:53:31] Speaker A: Yes, of course I did. Yeah.
Yes, it was very delicious.
[00:53:37] Speaker C: Awesome. So, yeah, I know that that's, that's the most important one, but, but, yeah, but so, so that people, you know, have this hook and think about the pink soup we're having, you know that, you know that we have the pink soup festival.
[00:53:51] Speaker A: Yes. I saw actually, I think a sign for it or something when I was there. I think it was happening after I was leaving though, get the chance to attend, but maybe, maybe another time. So.
[00:54:02] Speaker C: Yeah, so. So that's another hidden gem of Vilnius. So, yeah, yeah, but it's. It was pleasure to talk. Yeah. And to share. So, yeah, thank you so much for inviting me.
[00:54:13] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Anytime. You're welcome back. And also thank you to all of our listeners. Of course.
Wouldn't happen without you. And don't forget, you can always create a free account on Baba-SmartCities EU. You can find out more. You can find all of our podcasts there too, by the way, and you can find out more, use cases, SOL implementations and more. Thank you very much.
[00:54:35] Speaker B: Thank you all for listening. I'll see you at the next stop on the journey to a better urban life.
