Car
loving Germans are a relic of the eighties – the new generation
rides the bike instead, thus saving money, stress and the climate.
But politicians and the industry cling to the status-quo
(This is a shortened and updated translation of an article which I wrote for EPD news agency >> )
The
family carriage of the Heinecke's has five wheels and not even one
horsepower: Mother Gabriele Heinecke rides the bike in front, the
eldest daughter follows on a back seat and the two little ones sit in
a bike carrier at the end. It is a rare vehicle, provocing the
neighbours to shake their heads: “Will you still
not have a car?"
Germany
is a car producing, car maintaining, car loving country. Still nine
out of eleven households own a car, spending an average 269 euros a
month on it – more than a child of welfare recipients
gets. Cars make identities; the generation that has been growing up
in the 80ies is even called “VW Golf generation”, after the then
widely popular car. But their children do not identify
with gas guzzlers any longer. In a time where the oil stock runs
short and traffic is responsible for a quarter of all greenhouse
gases, the car as we know it is no longer sexy for young city
dwellers.
At
the Rio conference last month politicians discussed electric cars and
other “green technologies” as a way for a sustainable development
– the industry's lobbying efforts bear fruits. Eleven years after
Toyota presented the first hybrid car, the German state granted 500
million euros to help their industry catch up. “We are on the wrong
way again”, warns Wolfgang Lohbeck, transportation expert at
Greenpeace Germany. "As long as our electricity comes from
coal-fired power plants, electric cars are also carbon belchers.”
But potential consumers hesitate. The
image of car driving has changed in Germany: It is no longer a status
symbol, but a constraint of those who, in the eighties, have erected
their homestead in the suburban green, far away from public
transport. "Thanks to the re-urbanization cars become
increasingly expendable”, says transport expert Helmut Holzapfel of
Kassel University. "The car centred mobility has exceeded its
climax." He sees his own students as an example for this
paradigm shift: "While still lacking money to buy a car, they
discover the joy of cycling and stick to it."
But
how will Germans cope with the increasing need for mobility in the
future without own cars? Greenpeace expert Lohbeck: "Depending
on the situation we will choose different means of shared or public
transport by using a single fare system. Why own what we can also
share?” The Heinecke's from Osnabrück are pioneers for this model:
They use their bike trailer for shopping, borrow a car for trips and
go on holidays by train. “We save several hundred euros a month
this way – and a lot of stress”, says Gabriele Heinecke. "Maybe
we do less than families who flit hither and thither. But we enjoy
what we do."
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