Berlin delivery coverage: Buxtehude in place of Bullerbü

One of the nastiest accusations that stuck to the Greens at some stage in the election marketing campaign become that they desired to manipulate Berlin just like the 3-residence village of Bullerbü. You recollect: the best youngsters’s e-book with the aid of Astrid Lindgren.

And the Berlin Greens kissed, in place of even asking as soon as: What do the SPD, CDU, FDP and AFD actually have against an city society that treats nature and animals in a pleasant manner, in which youngsters play within the streets without threat to life, and where the aged are incorporated into normal life are, strangers do now not arouse worry but interest and the teacher is reputable?

First 30 km/h sector in Buxtehude

Let’s depart behind the election campaign grievance and turn to the subsequent shocker for Berlin’s vehicle fans: Not Bullerbü, no, the in addition fine Buxtehude is the present day version of internal-town shipping policy. Yes, the city of the nasty magician Petrosilius Zwackelmann from “Der Räuber Hotzenplotz” (sorry, some other children’s ebook…).

So that’s wherein the first German 30 km/h zone changed into installation in 1983, of path towards huge resistance from the automobile lobby: the metropolis would emerge as deserted, the street noise could increase, the quantity of accidents and so on.

Nicholas Bernau is an architect and art historian in Berlin and Hamburg.

None of this became showed. But on the contrary. Buxtehude remained a lively small metropolis subsequent to big Hamburg, with top shops and great streets and a remarkably low range of accidents, accidents and deaths as a result of automobile traffic – which, moreover, because anybody drives on the equal sluggish tempo, is regularly faster than this middle German overtaking subculture.

This has been staunchly defended via the automobile foyer and the Federal Ministry of Transport for decades, despite limitless research proving the advantages of pace limits for ecology and visitors waft, strength intake and noise discount, city trade, health and climate protection.

The consequences of this unfastened-journey-to-the-grave coverage are catastrophic: Cities are becoming deserted, the Deutsche Bahn has been ruined, local public delivery has in large part dried up, kids are afraid, adults do no longer cycle to work because it's miles too risky . What does German politics care that Tempo 30 has regularly been the norm in Scandinavian towns for many years?

Lots of site visitors, few walls Berlin misses self-imposed objectives for noise discount at the town dual carriageway “Have to shrink traffic” Senator for Transport desires to make Berlin weather-neutral via 2040 More safety for cyclists and pedestrians The visitors mild partners reward Wissing’s visitors turnaround plans

But there is also Buxtehude. The town that lives because it has obstructed the cars. As now praised in an intensive observe by using the initiative “Livable City”. Tempo 30 for forty years, at least in parts of the town middle: Congratulations to the city at the Este, the model of real urbanity. Has the Federal Transport Minister ever been to Buxtehude, or has a Berlin shipping planner ever been there?