Flemish Minister of Mobility and Public Works Lydia Peeters will invest 2.3 billion euros next year in 815 projects in her policy areas of Mobility and Public Transport. The Open VLD minister announced this today. According to Peeters, three key words are central to these investments: bicycle, road safety and sustainability.
Each year, the investments in the Mobility and Public Works (MOW) policy area are bundled in the integrated investment program or GIP. This GIP provides an overview of all investments and major infrastructure works for freight and passenger traffic, public transport, bicycles, inland shipping and water management. According to Minister Peeters, an investment program of 2.3 billion euros is ready for 2023, which will tackle 815 projects. The largest chunks of that budget go to the Agency for Roads and Traffic (738 million euros) and the Department of Mobility and Public Works (526 million euros).
Invest more in a bicycle-friendly Flanders
Minister Peeters points out that she will continue to invest in cycling infrastructure. That budget has been increased in recent years, from 180 million euros in 2020 to 355 million euros in 2021. That amount is slightly lower for 2023, but Minister Peeters still wants to allocate more than 300 million euros for bicycle investments. “We will continue our efforts so that Flanders becomes a real cycling region even more than today. We want to increase the share of cycling in functional trips in Flanders to 20 percent by 2025 at the latest,” explains Minister Peeters.
Greening public transport
The Open VLD minister also continues to invest in road safety and sustainability. For example, the ambition remains to have sufficient charging equivalents for electric vehicles by 2025 and to further green the De Lijn fleet. At De Lijn, Peeters also wants to tackle the maintenance backlog. “For De Lijn we reserve approximately 320 million euros in the investment plan. In terms of investment resources, this means an increase of 120 million euros compared to the basic amount,” it sounds. With the water bomb of 2021 still fresh in his mind, Minister Peeters also wants to continue to invest in water management. Between 2014 and 2020, an average of about 57 million euros was spent annually on water management. That amount has been increased in recent years to 90.5 million euros in 2021 and 123 million euros in 2021. For 2023, this amounts to a total of approximately 125 million euros.
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