I've essayed a number of times over the continuing frustration that Germans have over street projects that Germans have to pay for....individually, which can go from a couple thousand Euro....on up to thirty-to-forty thousand Euro (as their 'contribution'). Well....this week, in the Hessen Landestag (the state assembly), there's talk of a new bill coming up to settle this problem. It's being written by the SPD Party.
This suggestion? It's laid out by HR (our Hessen public TV folks).
The deal....terminate the assessment of road charges to private citizens. Right off the bat, everyone would get peppy with this idea and love it. But wait....there's the second feature, there would be simply a flat-rate amount of sixty million Euro a year, to be dispersed out to cities, towns and villages....rated by your population and the size of your urban area.
So, you'd sit there thinking about this and realize that cities like Frankfurt, Wiesbaden and Darmstadt would take a huge chunk of this money. Villages of 1,000 folks.....a very minor chunk of the money.
It appears that the CDU and FDP folks are very opposed to the plan, and it's a 50-50 shot if there's enough support to make this happen.
What you'd trigger....probably taking four to six years....is a situation where the smaller cities would all begging for more funds, and complaining about their street conditions.....while Frankfurt and Wiesbaden would be doing quiet well.
The way that the current system works.....main 'drags' through a town or city will end being out of the cities basic fund. Then when you get to the urban area (my street would be a good example.....all houses.....perhaps 40 of them....then any renovation would be divided up by the forty home owners). In my case, if this were a complete repaving job....you'd be talking about roughly 27,000 Euro being assessed as my 'fair share'. Yeah, my German wife would get all peppy and getting hyper.
Course, using this SPD idea....and being a part of Wiesbaden City.....it'd be a four-star deal to accept. It'd be free.
No comments:
Post a Comment