How can traffic work better? For the good of the environment and without people having to forego too many amenities? The debate about getting around could be one of the most exciting in the country, but so far it has mainly been dominated by individual interests: Here the industry, which intensively promotes so-called “individual mobility”, which usually means the highest possible car sales. There environmental associations, which often focus primarily on bicycles and public transport. The overriding question of how this works together, however, is still being discussed very quietly, especially so far in the Federal Ministry of Transport.
Now a group of economists and (former) car managers has presented a paper that tries to think everything together. “Eight maxims for better mobility” was the name of the group that included Kirstin Hegner, who heads the Digital Hub Mobility at the Technical University of Munich. There are also former Seat boss Jürgen Stackmann, Hans-Peter Kleebinder and Andreas Herrmann from the University of St. Gallen and Johann Jungwirth, who was once a VW pioneer and now works on robot shuttle services at the Intel subsidiary Mobileye.
“The focus of the new mobility”, the authors write, is the idea “to transport people and goods multimodally: quickly, easily, safely, cheaply, CO₂-neutral and without unnecessary transfers”. People should always have an eye on all modes of transport, from footpaths to bicycles to cars or buses and trains. This can mainly be done via apps – but they have to be offered nationwide instead of only in individual cities, as was previously the case.
In the last hundred years, cars have been the focus of planning
In the municipalities, on the other hand, there is a need for a different urban planning, the paper says, which in places reads like that of environmental associations: In the last hundred years, cars have been the focus of planning. “Now people should finally take this place again.” In this way, many things suddenly become possible: car-free zones, rapid progress, but at the same time also sports, recreation and games where streets used to be. The authors write that something like this could also work in cities that have grown; they explicitly refer to Paris and Copenhagen.
The coming federal government must also finance such model cities in this country. The cities, in turn, would have to change the framework, for example reallocating parking areas in the centers to cycle paths and making the remaining parking areas significantly more expensive. “Use, not own” is the principle in relation to cars anyway. But since nobody should be excluded from mobility, public transport should also become significantly cheaper and car sharing and a higher utilization of private cars should be significantly promoted. Statistically speaking, 1.5 people are currently sitting in a car. “If it were possible to increase the load factor of the vehicles to two people, one could theoretically do without more than ten million vehicles in Germany.”
That sounds like: Fewer cars are better than more. When Winfried Kretschmann once proclaimed this, the Green Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg, half the state suggested that he resign from office. But even now, such visions are still tricky. According to reports, even more authors contributed to the paper. But they would not have wanted to give up their name – because they fear trouble.