The Mouvement Réformateur (MR) group in Brussels City's municipal council has tabled a draft motion seeking major amendments to the circulation plan for the Pentagon, central Brussels.
The motion calls, first and foremost, for the immediate scrapping of a mobility test set up as part of the plan, which is the local implementation of Good Move, the mobility framework that re-designs Brussels' traffic flow to prioritise pedestrians and cyclists over cars and is being gradually introduced across Brussels.
Further, MR proposes the organisation of a broad consultation based on the needs of residents, shopkeepers, delivery people and businesses in the Pentagon’s neighbourhoods and the integration into this consultation of new places dedicated to pedestrians and new spaces dedicated to active modes.
Finally, the liberals suggest that the council ask the college of mayors and aldermen to “present, as soon as possible, to the municipal council a new traffic plan better adapted to the realities of the districts and more coordinated with the various construction sites.”
MR justifies the filing of its motion, in particular, by the “serious difficulties” that have arisen since the implementation of the Pentagon traffic plan on 16 August, and by “the absence of corrections to the mobility problems noted in the neighborhoods of Marolles, Saint-Jacques, Anneessens, Chicago, Marais, Senne, Sablon and Dansaert.”
It also highlighted the criticisms concerning the modalities of access for rescue and emergency services following the implementation of the new traffic plan, and the decision of the neighbouring municipalities of Molenbeek and Anderlecht to end their mobility test phase following requests from the population.
