The mobility protest in Brussels is about a lot, but often about mobility
The Maritime district in Molenbeek is one of the areas where emotions flare up about Brussels mobility plans. On an ordinary day there are more than five thousand cars in the small streets, mainly drivers who want to avoid the traffic jam on the Leopold II avenue. But that cut-through traffic puts a lot of pressure on the densely populated district, where people have few gardens or terraces and so many children play on the street.
When the citizens’ collective Filter Café Filtré received permission from the city council to make the neighborhood car-free for three months, Verdickt was delighted. “In the summer we already had a few closed to cars, so that the children could play safely in the street. You could see the neighborhood really blossoming during that period. Suddenly everyone came from behind their facade and neighbors get to know each other.”
The campaign was followed up in early August. A busy intersection was ‘cut through’ with a cast iron sphere that only trucks can pass over. Cyclists and pedestrians can just pass. In this way, the neighborhood remained accessible to residents, but not to cut-through traffic. A liberation, the citizens’ collective thought. But before the cut was a fact, things went wrong. Part of the neighborhood turned against the plan.
“It already started when we were installing the sphere,” says Verdickt. “A couple of men came aggressively towards us. She didn’t know what was happening and didn’t think it was possible that a blond, white woman suddenly even came to direct traffic. Like, ‘What do you think?’”
For two days, Verdickt took up post to explain to surprised local residents what was going on. Until mobility ships Abdellah Achaoui (PS) and later the rest of the council of aldermen succumbed under the pressure. Less than three weeks after the orb had completely resurfaced, it disappeared again.
In the meantime, the resistance against the mobility plans in Brussels has also spread to Brussels city and Anderlecht. The basis is the ‘Good Move’ plan of the Brussels government, in which the region is divided into fifty neighbourhoods. Every year a circulation plan is drawn up in five of these districts. Transit traffic is thereby barred, resulting in safer and more livable areas. But not everyone is convinced.
In the Anderlecht district of Kuregemn, angry local residents removed weeks that are being planted there again and again to buy a new bicycle and a cutting strip for cars. The sabotage worked, Mayor Fabrice Cumps (PS) now wants to completely revise the plan. Also in Brussels city, there is a louder protest from residents who prefer to see the plans changed.
The opposition placed the green minister of mobility Elke Van den Brandt (Green) in a dilemma. The idea was that support for the measures would grow as soon as local residents improved the benefits. This was also the case in Ghent, where mobility ships Philip Wat initially received death threats when he introduced a circulation plan in 2017. Two years later, he was voted for for his bravery by the voter.
Only the criticism in Brussels does not seem to abate. In fact, the 2024 local elections will take more politicians out of electoral plans in mind. The ecologists are isolated. “We are certainly open to additional dialogue with local residents, but the great principles remain in place,” said the Van den Brandt cabinet, which does not want to be intimidated.
But above all, the discussion about the mobility plan is a catalyst for many other urban discontent. The protest in Cureghem, for example, has to do with the underinvestment in the district. Laying down concrete blocks is rather easy, say critics, if they mainly crave safety and investment.
“Let me put it this way: I don’t feel that this discussion is about mobility,” says Verdickt. “It’s more about gentrification, about drug problems that are not being addressed and about lack of participation.”