Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg and Nuremberg recorded more public transport use in 2024 than ever before, according to figures from local transport associations.
It sounds like all of the problems they’ve faced are matters of fiscal priority. By contrast, how much money was spent on car infrastructure that ultimately has still not fixed traffic? I’m betting that number is higher.
At leats for Hamburg the plan was to invest 3.2billion into transport infrastructure from 2023-2026 of which 126million€ goest into roads for cars. That is a bit more then half they put into pedestrian and cycling infrastructure and absolutly dwarved by the extension of metro, regional rail and other public transport costs.
That being said that is the city and the federal government is covering up a long stretch of highway in Hamburg, which is extremely expensive.
That’s based of Hamburg as far as explicit costs go, but there’s also implicit costs. I don’t know Hamburg, I’ve never been there, but I’ll make an assumption that it’s like every other big city with urban parking and ICE cars stuck in traffic every morning, bellowing fumes out for everyone to breathe.
It is my argument that for every dollar you don’t explicitly spend on car infrastructure, you’ll get it back tenfold in implicit costs being alleviated elsewhere, especially in the physical- and mental healthcare sectors.
In the olden days Hamburgs city planners really thought cyclists were awesome. Like awesome enough to jump over a fully grown tree on the cycling path. Also it is the largest city in the EU without a tram system…
I don’t know Hamburg, I’ve never been there, but I’ll make an assumption that it’s like every other big city with urban parking and ICE cars stuck in traffic every morning, bellowing fumes out for everyone to breathe.
That’s definitely one of the worst crossings on one of the worst roads in town. This road has been built in the 1960’s when people were fully committed to the “autogerechte Stadt” (car-righteous city). Even with the current budget and a green (and more importantly cycling) senator for traffic and mobility transition you can’t fix 70 years of missdevelopment in 5 years. But we are working on it.
In the other direction, the (more or less) parallel Mönckebergstraße is already closed for cars (except busses and taxis), and the even more parallel Steinstraße is due for a full reconstruction this year, after which it will also be closed for personal cars.
It’s getting better slowly but steadily. The biggest problem I see, is that there are often segments with great bicycle infrastructure that end abruptly without any useful transition from and to the old, shitty infrastructure. For example, this is the road leading towards the new bike lane on the Reeperbahn (see above). There is not even a shitty bike path there, you have to either illegally use the pavement, or the 4th lane of the 5 lane monstrosity you see in 5714s photo.
Spending twice as much money on walking and cycling infrastructure as on car infrastructure isn’t too bad, especially when you consider that roads for cars cost 20x more per km than roads for bikes.
Hamburg for sure isn’t a paradise for cyclists, and they still build a fair share of stupid infrastructure, but it’s already gotten a lot better than 10 or 20 years ago.
It sounds like all of the problems they’ve faced are matters of fiscal priority. By contrast, how much money was spent on car infrastructure that ultimately has still not fixed traffic? I’m betting that number is higher.
The German government is subsidising having a fancy car as an employment bonus (Dienstwagenprivileg).
It’s not technically supposed to be about having a fancy car (i.e. an SUV), but that’s what it’s often subsidising in practice
At leats for Hamburg the plan was to invest 3.2billion into transport infrastructure from 2023-2026 of which 126million€ goest into roads for cars. That is a bit more then half they put into pedestrian and cycling infrastructure and absolutly dwarved by the extension of metro, regional rail and other public transport costs.
That being said that is the city and the federal government is covering up a long stretch of highway in Hamburg, which is extremely expensive.
That’s based of Hamburg as far as explicit costs go, but there’s also implicit costs. I don’t know Hamburg, I’ve never been there, but I’ll make an assumption that it’s like every other big city with urban parking and ICE cars stuck in traffic every morning, bellowing fumes out for everyone to breathe.
It is my argument that for every dollar you don’t explicitly spend on car infrastructure, you’ll get it back tenfold in implicit costs being alleviated elsewhere, especially in the physical- and mental healthcare sectors.
In the olden days Hamburgs city planners really thought cyclists were awesome. Like awesome enough to jump over a fully grown tree on the cycling path. Also it is the largest city in the EU without a tram system…
Thanks I’ll never visit Hamburg
That’s definitely one of the worst crossings on one of the worst roads in town. This road has been built in the 1960’s when people were fully committed to the “autogerechte Stadt” (car-righteous city). Even with the current budget and a green (and more importantly cycling) senator for traffic and mobility transition you can’t fix 70 years of missdevelopment in 5 years. But we are working on it.
3km to the west, the street now looks like this. On the Reeperbahn, 1.5km to the west they also converted 2 of the four car lanes into bicylce lanes, which also will be made permanent now.
In the other direction, the (more or less) parallel Mönckebergstraße is already closed for cars (except busses and taxis), and the even more parallel Steinstraße is due for a full reconstruction this year, after which it will also be closed for personal cars.
It’s getting better slowly but steadily. The biggest problem I see, is that there are often segments with great bicycle infrastructure that end abruptly without any useful transition from and to the old, shitty infrastructure. For example, this is the road leading towards the new bike lane on the Reeperbahn (see above). There is not even a shitty bike path there, you have to either illegally use the pavement, or the 4th lane of the 5 lane monstrosity you see in 5714s photo.
Spending twice as much money on walking and cycling infrastructure as on car infrastructure isn’t too bad, especially when you consider that roads for cars cost 20x more per km than roads for bikes. Hamburg for sure isn’t a paradise for cyclists, and they still build a fair share of stupid infrastructure, but it’s already gotten a lot better than 10 or 20 years ago.