Traffic turnaround: No ideological arguments about the car

Marburg has been arguing about transport policy for decades.

The city is squeezed into the narrow valley of the Lahn, the paths, especially in the old town, are narrow.

In addition, two thirds of the employees commute to the university town.

"All of this makes mobility a challenge," says Lord Mayor Thomas Spies.

The SPD politician consciously speaks of mobility, the term traffic is still primarily associated with the car, he says.

With a mobility and traffic plan, called Move 35, the central Hessian center with its almost 80,000 inhabitants wants to free itself from exhaust gases and noise.

Car traffic, which currently accounts for 42 percent of all traffic, is to be halved to 21 percent by 2035.

Conversely, this means that in a good decade, almost four out of five journeys in the city will be made using local public transport, by bike or on foot.

Those are ambitious goals.

Spies says he sees no alternative because greenhouse gas pollution from car traffic continues to increase.

Marburg wants to be climate neutral by 2030.

By the end of this year, the municipality intends to develop a whole package of projects to make Move 35 a reality.

In an online survey, the city received suggestions from almost 4000 citizens - the participation was many times higher than had been expected.

The traffic turnaround is being accompanied by a committee made up of environmental organizations and representatives of the local economy.

The mayors of the surrounding communities or districts are also present.

Plan comprehensively

"We want to work in a consensus-oriented manner," says Spies, who doesn't believe in an ideological debate about the role of the car.

With the many different interests, "differentiated solutions" are the only way to set up a mobility plan.

Marburg also relies on the guidelines for sustainable urban mobility plans developed by the EU Commission – SUMP (Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan) for short.

Marburg is not alone in Hesse.

To provide advice on the implementation of SUMP, the state government and Transport Minister Tarek Al-Wazir (The Greens) have set up a “Center for Sustainable Urban Mobility” in Frankfurt.

"SUMP relies on cross-departmental planning, from the traffic department to the environmental agency," says Stefanie Schwerdtfeger, head of the specialist center, which is based in the new Gateway Gardens district at the airport.

The system-oriented process should include all those involved in administration.

In Marburg, for example, the building authority, economic development, urban planning and social planning work closely together.

Another central point of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan is the participation of all those affected outside of the administration - "participatory" is what the planners call it.

It is not only about the citizens in the municipality, but also about the interest groups.

Because of the commuters, the city-surroundings aspect is also important, which was little considered in the past when traffic plans were drawn up and discussed.

Germany, car country

With the Move 35, Marburg demonstrated how the new approach could work.

The cities of Kassel and Limburg have already drawn up a mobility plan based on SUMP.

Other municipalities such as Frankfurt, Offenbach, Giessen, Hanau, Bad Hersfeld and the Wetterau district are on the way.

In Frankfurt, for example, a “Mobility Master Plan” is to be drawn up by the end of the year.

"It's about looking at the local conditions to see whether traffic can be handled in a more tolerable and climate-friendly manner," says Stefanie Schwerdtfeger.