On Monday, the traffic light factions agreed on important nationwide reforms in the transport sector: the truck toll should be expanded, planning and approval should be quicker for certain rail and motorway projects and road traffic law will be reformed.
This was preceded by weeks of negotiations between the government factions of the SPD, Greens and FDP. The agreement is based on decisions made by the coalition leaders at the end of March. In the past few weeks, however, there have been negotiations within the government factions about draft laws. At the end of September, the FDP accused the Greens of blocking the process. The new draft laws are now expected to be passed by the Bundestag this week.
Planning acceleration
The renovation backlog in the transport sector is to be lifted by the “Approval Acceleration Act”. This is about faster implementation of rail projects, but also highway projects that are hot spots and bottlenecks. In addition, every available area on highways should be used for solar generation in the future, as is the case in one of the SZ present paper from the Greens is called. The list of motorway expansions to be accelerated is “exhaustive” and applies once. How quickly the projects would be implemented also depends on the investment funds available. The Greens had long had reservations about accelerating planning for motorways.
Dilapidated bridges should receive a “repair booster,” as the Green paper says. The renovation of bridges will be made faster through a number of simplifications and exceptions.
Truck toll
As already provided for in the draft law, a CO2 surcharge is to be introduced for the truck toll. The coalition wants to provide incentives to accelerate the switch to trucks with climate-friendly drives. Billions in revenue from the truck toll are to flow into rail for the first time.
The rail network in Germany is partly dilapidated, resulting in train cancellations and delays. From the summer of next year until 2030, particularly heavily used routes are to be fundamentally renovated.
In view of the agreement, the Green Party parliamentary group leader Katharina Dröge speaks of “investment switches” that will turn Germany into a “rail country”.
Road Traffic Act
“Instead of roads and cars, people and their health as well as climate protection will become the focus of transport policy in the future,” summarizes the deputy parliamentary group leader of the Greens, Julia Verlinden. The paper says: “Instead of excessive bureaucracy for every cycle path or zebra crossing, mobility on foot or by bike is finally given political priority.” Accordingly, in addition to the fluidity and safety of traffic, the goals of climate and environmental protection, health and urban development should also be taken into account. It should be easier for municipalities to implement changes to traffic safety, such as 30 km/h zones or cycle paths. Municipalities could “in the future, among other things, make children’s journeys to school safer and take pragmatic measures to ensure that cyclists travel stress-free and fear-free,” the paper says.
The Federal Council must agree to the changes. State transport ministers had already signaled that they still saw a need for improvement. Specific regulations are then contained in the road traffic regulations, which are also to be changed.