Professor Tobias Kuhnimhof, a transportation planning expert at RWTH, calls for a different distribution of space, greater investment in public transit, and an amendment to road traffic law.
Aachen’s city center is quite small, so it’s not particularly smart to let lots of cars into the city center. It sounds simple, but "this incontrovertible truth has been somewhat pushed into the background due to the overriding issue of greenhouse gas emissions," says Professor Tobias Kuhnimhof. According to the head of the Chair and Institute of Urban and Transport Planning, cities should focus on means of transportation other than private cars.
Increased emissions are not the only negative consequence of the constant increase in traffic, especially in city centers. Cars, including electric cars, take up a lot of space, and space is scarce in cities. Therefore, the solution can only be an efficient public transit system in combination with non-motorized means of transportation: what we need is a so-called "mobility transition".
There are two paths that can be taken: Allow parking in selected areas only, and introduce a general speed limit: "These are the key push factors to ensure that traffic in cities does not continue to grow. The somewhat trivial truth is that otherwise we will be constantly stuck in a traffic jams together," says Kuhnimhof. What’s more: Driving a car has become increasingly cheaper in relation to our income. In the five years before the COVID-19 pandemic, driving a car was cheaper than ever before, partly due to increasingly fuel-efficient vehicles. If the car driving continues to be as comfortable as it currently is, it will remain the most attractive means of transportation, and this will inevitably result in gridlock.
"The car may be great from the perspective of the individual", says Kuhnimhof. But in light of land consumption, emissions, and traffic jams, "it is highly problematic from the perspective of the entire system". Incidentally, building new roads, as many people demand, does nothing to reduce motor traffic congestion, on the contrary: If we build new roads, we will reap additional traffic, according to the mobility expert. Das sei im Übrigen völlig unstrittig.
So what can we do? First, we could take a look at what others are doing. International flagship cities for public transit are Zurich and Vienna, cities that invest a lot of money in buses and trains and at the same time consistently keep cars away from their city centers. In order to make public transport attractive, that is, fast, clean and affordable, investments must be made. Cities such as Utrecht, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen are consistently turning to bicycles, "a lot is changing in Paris as well at the moment, where bold steps have been taken to push the car further and further away and to rededicate the space thus made available," says Kuhnimhof.
And Aachen? The city is definitely on the right track, even if the conditions here are particularly complicated, or, as the expert puts it: "It is really difficult for us." Due to the narrow city center, every construction site has a massive impact. Kuhnimhof compares the situation to that of Karlsruhe. The cities are similar in size, and both are home to a university of technology, but: Karlsruhe has much more space and also has a streetcar system, so the impact of roadworks is less pronounced. Nevertheless, the path recently taken in Aachen is the right one, "even if it will be a few years before the effects can be really felt."
However, the situation is not as clear in suburban and rural areas. Here, the car may still be the most sensible means of transportation, assuming alternative drive systems are used - so in these areas, it’s more about the transition to environmentally-friendly drives. However, this transition to emission-free mobility will take a long time. This is because most vehicles sold today still have a combustion engine running on fossil fuels. "We know that these vehicles are on the roads in Germany for 15 to 20 years; subsequently, many of them are sold abroad," says Kuhnimhof. The transition to environmentally friendly drive technology will thus take some time.
What is needed in addition to investment in public transit is the amendment of road traffic legislation. So far, according to Professor Kuhnimhof, road traffic law has only recognized two criteria for regulatory intervention: Safety and ease of traffic. In order to keep the legislation up to date and take account of policy goals such as climate protection, the Road Traffict Act needs to be amended. The German Bundestag had already approved the amendment "before it was stopped in the Bundesrat at the end of 2023 for inexplicable reasons", says Kuhnimhof. As a result, local authorities currently have little chance of redesigning their traffic systems.
What could our cities look like in 20 years? Tobias Kuhnimhof is optimistic about the future: "Even if the system is not going to be massively different, we will have a different division of space in the cities, with more green spaces, more active mobility, more public transportation, and we will see more e-mobility everywhere."
