Almost half of the people in #Germany do not have a #car – or a driver’s license. Nevertheless, this country’s urban, rural, and life planning revolves around only one thing: the car.
Katja Diehl, #mobility expert, #speaker, #author and #consultant – and probably Germany’s best-known #anticaractivist – invites society to a change of perspective in this week’s #HandelsblattDisrupt with Sebastian Matthes.
The bestselling author asks: Why must the car always get all the space? What about that half of the population that doesn’t drive a car – and still constantly has to take a back seat?
30 years ago children often walked or biked to school by themselves. Today they are driven – because traffic makes walking too dangerous. And years ago, people in rural regions were happy to take jobs in urban centers because a 45-minute commute seemed perfectly okay – today, thanks to cuts in #public #transportation, ramshackle #railroads and dilapidated
#bridges, they often need 90 minutes or more to get there. Basically unacceptable.
So everyone feels the traffic #gridlock every day – and that despite the fact that only 10% of the 49 million cars in Germany are on the road at any one time.
As in so many issues of our times, it probably requires a mind shift to reconcile people’s need for healthy and safe environments, traffic, climate change and the need to switch to renewables. Listen in and decide for yourself.
