DEVELOPMENT OF SUSTAINABLE RECREATION AND TOURISM AS A WAY OF PROMOTING ALTERNATIVE URBAN MOBILITY

The investigation presents a method for developing sustainable recreation and tourism in urban and suburban areas. For this reason interaction between urban and the surrounding spaces of Vilnius city has been analysed. Sustainable recreation is considered as a complex of measures to control unlimited expansion of motor traffic into residential and public areas and facilitate development of pedestrian, cycling and water mobility in cities. Obstacles to develop sustainable recreation from urban areas to suburban spaces are analysed and disclosed. Structural disconnections between urban passages and public spaces, absence of direct access corridors from residential parts of the city to recreational areas in suburban regions, uncoordinated spontaneous urban development are the main obstacles. Because of this Vilnius city is experiencing a shrinking net of pedestrian and cycling tracks and river mobility lines that are especially favored by citizens for recreational purposes in towns. Uncontrolled motor traffic sprawl is another reality that makes sustainable urban mobility even more difficult. The proposed method for creating a network of sustainable mobility tracks in a residential and public environment is based on coordinated planning of "green corridors" linking urban and suburban areas with interior and exterior recreational resources, connection of urban, regional and national networks of pedestrian, cycling and river travel tracks. Integration of diverse types of recreational mobility in planned travel routes is applied as an attractive innovation. Public transport as trolleybuses, busses and railway is also integrated into the system of sustainable recreation in residential spaces. The planning proposals for a network of sustainable recreation in Vilnius city were presented to the Municipality and now are undergoing a practical testing phase on the analysed sites with involvement of local residents and visitors.