The goal is to create a residential quarter that prevents the necessity to travel more than 15 minutes to get the most essential goods and services, and therefore reduces the amount of carbon emissions related to transport – the key to averting the so-called heat-island effect. An important aspect of the implementation will be the involvement of citizens and the active cooperation of all parties (city units) to discuss about the problems, vision for the Climate Quarter and future interventions.

Ongoing initiative

• Focus studies (8 meetings): to discuss about the problems, vision for the CQ and future interventions
• Workshop with representatives of the city units: to discuss about the results of the diagnosis, vision and future interventions 
• Café world (1st workshop with stakeholders): to diagnose problems and potentials (2nd workshop with stakeholders): to discuss about the future interventions
• 2 consultative points: to discuss about the problems, vision & future interventions
• Online survey (geosurvey)
  
• Phone and email contact with experts 

Developing the CQ, the city centre could offer potential for decarbonising mobility which contributes to carbon-neutral infrastructure and lifestyle. The way of reaching this goal is through a climate narrative and communication. Next to that, there will also be a focus on behaviour change, as due to the pandemic the focus on cycling as part of the national recovery plan also offers the opportunity to accelerate this change. The CQ’s cross-district bike routes will serve as a testing ground for this experiment.

This project is a part of Krakow’s road to climate neutrality as a part of the challenge they took on joining the Deep Demonstrations programme, create by Climate-KIC and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. 

• Challenge identification & conceptualization new approaches
  
• Co-creation & prototyping new approaches

The City of Krakow (Zero-Emission Krakow) as part of the Deep Demonstrations Programme

Residents - Consulted, informed 

Entrepreneurs - Consulted

City units - Consulted

NGOs - Consulted

People working in CQ - Consulted, informed

• Political: City of Krakow being part of the Climate-KIC programme to reach for carbon neutrality 
• Economic: funding, prices for bikes and public transport 
• Social: Behaviour change (more bikers due to pandemic) 
  
• Technical: bike lanes, public transport connections

Social: in general residents feel uninformed about activities undertaken by the city, they are tired of constant ‘experiments’ in the public space, feel fear of being disappointed – not all groups were sufficiently involved 

Main positive lessons/opportunities identified:

• Quite a wide range of participation forms made it possible to reach many different users of the CQ
• The whole process carried out by the external experts à easing tensions between the city and the inhabitants

Main failures/barriers identified:

• Residents feel uninformed about activities undertaken by the city, they are tired of constant ‘experiments’ in the public space, feel fear of being disappointed
• Mobilisation of supporters, not many unconvinced appeared at the workshops – to be improved in a future 
  
• Religious associations (Catholic and Jewish) and entrepreneurs not sufficiently involved – to be improved in a future