The Greens want a free MVV weekend ticket and more pop-up bike lanes to save on gas and thus reduce dependency on Russian oil. The party, i.e. the city association, proposes this in a message. For this purpose, it is to be investigated how fossil fuels could be saved in the city with reduced heating.
The SPD in the town hall is badly upset by the green advance in transport policy. Group leader Anne Hübner stated that the coalition partner “missed political priorities”: “It would be more important to push for housing construction in order to accommodate the refugees well in the long term.”
In particular, Hübner was enraged by the proposal to introduce a free weekend ticket for local transport. The Greens know very well that there is no financial leeway for this. Nevertheless, publicly demanding the free ticket is “cheap populism”. So you can act from the opposition, “but not as a party that is responsible for the government”.
The Greens wanted to first check the possibility of free tickets on weekends or on individual days. “It won’t happen overnight,” said co-chairman Joel Keilhauer. The city should not pay for it alone. “Financial support from the federal and state governments should be sought,” the statement said. The Greens would also like to include excursion traffic on weekends in their initiative. In addition, cooperation with Deutsche Bahn and private railway companies should also be examined.
The people of Munich should also turn down the heating by one or two degrees
In addition, pop-up cycle paths are intended to encourage commuters in particular to do without their cars. Therefore, the spontaneous designation of cycle paths would have to “include relevant arterial roads in all directions”. Co-City Chief Keilhauer has no understanding for the SPD’s harsh rejection of the initiative. “It’s not about playing things off against each other. That’s not the most constructive way to deal with it.”
In order to save even more fossil raw materials, the Greens believe that the people of Munich should turn down the heating by one or two degrees and ventilate more skilfully. The city should promote this with an information campaign and check whether it could distribute thermometers and CO₂ traffic lights to private individuals and companies.
Group leader Florian Roth thinks the direction of his party’s advance is good, but he too is dampening hopes. A free MVV ticket is expensive, the city cannot pay for it alone, he said. He doesn’t have much hope that someone else will bear the costs. Roth does like pop-up cycle paths in individual cases, but here it is important to weigh up how much energy and resources you put into it, or whether you would rather invest in permanent cycle paths.
Regarding the coalition partner’s criticism, Roth said, “I’d rather argue in the town hall than on Twitter.” Hübner had first expressed himself there. The City Greens also received encouragement – from the SPD, of all people. Munich Juso boss Benedict Lang explained to his party friend Hübner on social media: “Calling free public transport a priceless watering can doesn’t get any truer, even if it’s repeated.”