Alternatives for the big city
Initiative demands 1.100 euro per year for everyone who doesn’t have a car
Updated: 26.09.2021 07:27
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- Author mara schumacher
To make life more environmentally friendly, cars should go – at least that’s what one initiative is calling for. People who forego them are to be rewarded.
Berlin- the municipality of denzlingen in baden-Wurttemberg has set an example: if you give up your car, you will be rewarded. Now a major city followed this idea.
| city | berlin |
| area | 891.8 km² |
| population | 3.645 million (2019) |
| Mayor | michael miller |
A Berlin initiative calls for 1.100 euros a year – or just under 100 euros a month – for every citizen who does not own a car and instead uses alternatives such as car sharing, bicycles or public transportation. For comparison: an annual subscription for the berliner verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) costs around 1.000 euro.
60.000 fewer private cars possible in berlin
according to calculations by the initiators of changing cities and the institute for urban mobility, this could save 60.000 private cars less on the road in the capital city. Around 1.2 million motor vehicles are currently registered in Berlin the cost of the so-called free road premium would be around one billion euros. The bonus is to be financed via the "income from the CO₂ price", it says. In Berlin, a model project has already been implemented that will make friedrichstrasse completely car-free.
Cash incentive could encourage people to give up their cars
Transport scientist andreas knie reckons that around 50 percent of car owners can do without their cars in everyday life. A premium would presumably induce many people to think about giving up the service. According to knie, however, public transport services would have to be significantly improved, since car drivers are used to mobile independence.
This would require a door-to-door provisioning. From knie’s point of view, the still necessary look at the timetable reduces the willingness of many people to switch from the car to public transport. The federal states are already demanding additional billions for the expansion of public transportation.
prices for public transport keep rising
The price of buses and trains rose by almost 80 percent between 2000 and 2018, while the cost of purchasing and maintaining a car increased by only 36 percent, according to the Federal Statistical Office. So for many people, the car remains the cheaper and more practical choice for getting from A to B. Only with incentives like the premium of 1.The traffic researcher is convinced that people could be persuaded to switch to public transport for example by the 100th time per year.