Friday 28 July
Would you give up your car for a 3-year Deutschlandticket?
To drive or not to drive? Car ownership has become something of a political football in Berlin recently. In the repeat elections, the CDU ran an explicitly Auto-friendly campaign: promising to end car-free streets, shut down bike lanes and generally encourage Germans’ love for their motors. The Greens, on the other hand, have been proposing a number of measures aimed at reducing car-driving – and they’ve just got another one.
The head of the Berlin Green Party, Werner Graf has revealed plans for a special incentive to encourage Berliners to give up their cars: provide proof that you’ve de-registered your vehicle, and you could get a Deutschlandticket for 3 years, allowing unlimited travel on public transport across Germany. Apparently, a similar scheme has been successfully trialled in Barcelona.
The €49 Deutschland seems to have been a success so far, even if we don’t know exactly how long the scheme will last, with some reports claiming it has led to a 10 to 20% increase of passengers on public transport since its introduction. However, with the UN secretary general announcing this week that global warming has now given way to an era of “global boiling” – we might need more radical measures – and soon.
