One of the main stories via ARD (German public TV news, Channel One) today....centers on diesel car chatter and trying to get the cities to back down on banning diesel cars from entry into metropolitan urban areas.
It's an interesting fight. The Bundestag really doesn't want to grant some blanket waiver or allow the cities to make decisions on banning certain types of vehicles (it opens the door to a massive number of future problems). The cities? They believe they can wiggle out billions in funding, if they play their cards right.
So today, Chancellor Merkel and a group stood up and said.....here, have at 500 million Euro...spread out among sixteen states, for clean-air projects. But that's it.....no more.
The cities? Oh, that wasn't the amount they were hoping for. But they are careful not to say the magic amount. My humble guess? It's likely in the neighborhood of 20-billion Euro over three years.....to be divided by forty-odd cities.
The gov't angle to the 500 million? Mostly revolving around hardware retrofitting of diesel buses and more electric/battery vehicles for public transport.
What the cities all want? They'd like to create some pattern where all inner-city travel would be public vehicles and free, and they'd start to ban not just diesel cars, but to a great extent.....even gas cars, and make people use public transportation to reach inner metropolitan cities. Just to suggest this type of theme in cities like Hamburg or Frankfurt.....you'd generally scare the crap out of local residents. Bus, subway, and tram services would have to literally double in size....with this all being free in some way.
Do the anti-diesel folks grasp the extent of business operations in their cities? I often wonder about that. Just because you say there are 700,000 residents in Frankfurt....it doesn't really take into consideration the number who come into the city already via bus, tram, the subway system, or by private car. Just by car, I'd take a guess that 150,000 cars per morning make the trip to enter the city limits.
At the heart of the matter, you need transportation infrastructure people who understand the dynamics of private individuals needing to get from point A to B....without a lot of complicated efforts, or excessive time. The anti-diesel crowd? I don't get any impression that they grasp the nature of their 'customers'.
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