On Wednesday, Brussels City, Stib and the Bruxelles Capitale-Ixelles zone police force announced they were prepared for new phase of testing of the city centre pedestrian zone, due to start in September. "This joint initiative aims to make sure that, from next week onwards, everyone travelling to and from school and work is able to get around and into the city centre as efficiently as possible," they announced in a statement.
The new traffic plan will go live for an 8-month test phase at the start of the new school year, when traffic will be particularly dense. A large proportion of the city centre boulevards have been pedestrianised since June 29th. Brussels City council points out that signage informing the public about the pdestrianisation of the city centre ahs been installed and that they are currently running public awareness campaigns to facilitate getting around the city.
Brussels residents and commuters travelling in the city centre are being encouraged to "Forget the car, try something new!"
The statement explains that "People driving from outside Brussels can leave their car at one of the car parks on the outskirts of the city (Kraainem, Ceria, Erasmus, Stalle, Herrmann-Debroux, Delta) and use public transport to access the centre", also encouraging drivers who have to brave the city centre, to "make use of the various underground car parks" Brussels town centre has to offer.
Bruxelles-Mobilité points out that Rue Belliard will be completely re-opened as of Tuesday, September 1st.
Bruxelles Capitale-Ixelles police comments that it has been "issuing fines for traffic offenses in the pedestrian zone for several days now. (...) The police will also be keeping an eye out for cyclists speeding in this zone and endangering pedestrians (speed limit for the zone is 6km/h)."
The authorities have also revealed that, from August 31st onwards, Brussels City council, Bruxelles-Mobilité and local police locale will be working together to keep the public up to date in real time about traffic in the city, mainly via social media websites.
(Source: Belga)
