Category Archives: Wolfgang

All posts by Wolfgang

Parking Space Management / Fee-Based Parking – A Definition of Terms

In the objectives of the recently elected Bremen state government, regulation and limitation of parking are at the forefront. Strategic measures from the Bremen Transport Development Plan 2025 have now finally been included in the operative catalogue of objectives of our state government.

In addition, civil society is increasingly calling for a decisive change in transport policy. Among other things, it no longer accepts the unsustainable situation in many urban neighbourhoods caused by illegally parked cars and the climate-damaging “successes” of an automobile industry advertising the purchase of large cars against all common well-being:

– be it that on a local level the Bremer Verkehrswende-Bündnis has adopted the demands for comprehensive fee-based parking as an essential lever for the societal move “away from the car – towards a sustainable transport and a city worth living in”,
– be it that the demands for a stepwise reduction in the number of parking spaces, for city tolls and consistent charging of parking are now clearly demanded by the many groups that support the climate strikes in Bremen,
– be it that a growing number of associations and groups operating nationwide make themselves heard and demand a clear renunciation of the radical (almost) inaction from federal and state governments.

With this post, I would like to explain the term “parking space management” and explore its context in order to be able to be more linguistically uniform in our demands regarding such questions as “reclaiming public space” and indeed “parking” and to give them ever stronger impact.

What is parking space management Continue reading Parking Space Management / Fee-Based Parking – A Definition of Terms →

The Time Is Ripe – Parking Must Cost

The New Bremen Politics of Parking

The newly-elected Bremen coalition government has agreed ambitious changes to transport policy, and placed them at the forefront of the coalition agreement (Draft Agreement on Cooperation in a Government Coalition for Bremen, 2019-2023), hereafter referred to as the “Koa Treaty”.  Meanwhile this draft has been approved internally by all parties of the coalition and it will thus be put into effect by the coalition parties in the near future.

At the same time, the Bremen Alliance for Transport Change -on the basis of the findings of the conference held in Oct. 2018– has set itself the goal of achieving the practical implementation of its core requirement, the introduction of a city-wide management of public parking areas in Bremen, making parking chargeable all over the place.

This post opens a series on the topic “Management of public parking spaces”. The aim is to provide activists in Bremen with a common conceptual and factual framework for their actions in initiatives, associations, district councils, etc.

Continue reading The Time Is Ripe – Parking Must Cost →

Conference on Transport and Environment in Germany

A Conference on Transport and Environment takes place in Germany every other year.  This year 450 people came to the city of Darmstadt to discuss new ideas for sustainable transport for our cities. Please find the link to the presentations and working group papers here.


Ticket for BUVKO 2019

It was impressive how many young people attended. “Fridays For Future” seems to have an impact. Continue reading Conference on Transport and Environment in Germany →

The Desperados of Schwachhausen

Bremen’s Transport Development Plan is again under attack from the car-friendly city brigade. Just a few weeks after it decided to increase the number of parking spaces on the controversial Parkallee cycle street, the local council in Schwachhausen has proposed to legalise rogue parking on three streets in the district. In every case, this involves vehicles using part of the pavement as a convenient way of being able to park on both sides of the street without blocking the road.

Bremen’s Transport Transition Alliance issued a statement condemning the proposal, accusing it of capitulating to illegal parking without considering how to combat it:

“The local council itself (referring to the extremely rare traffic control interventions) talked of a “state failure”. Their aspirations however, completely contradict the goals of a sustainable change in our transport situation, and are an expression of resignation in the face of the previous apparent inactivity of Bremen’s policy and administration regarding car parking”.

What makes the proposal even stranger is the fact that the local council has a progressive/left majority, with 11 members from the SPD, Greens and Die Linke, and 8 from the CDU and FDP from the right. In fact, both the Parkallee proposal and the move to legalise pavement parking were opposed by just one Green member. Continue reading The Desperados of Schwachhausen →

“Platz Da!” Moves Up A Gear

The “Platz Da!” initiative has officially launched, as reported in the Weserkurier and on the telly.

“Platz Da! Bremen “is involving a growing number of Bremen citizens who are working together for a better cycling and walking infrastructure, and a comprehensive parking management system for the city. The campaign’s key demand is that the streets belong to all of us, not just the owners of parked cars, and is working with the Transport Transition Alliance , launched in January 2018 with a call for a city-wide management of car parking, and a genuine strategy for reducing space used by parked vehicles.

Continue reading “Platz Da!” Moves Up A Gear →

Offener Brief an die Landesregierung Bremens gegen das Falschparken

It’s National Illegal Parking Week in Germany. As part of a series of actions in Bremen, the Bremen Alliance for A Transport Transition sent the following letter to members of the state government of the State of Bremen:

Dear Mayor of Bremen, and dear Bremen Senators,

This letter is a protestation. We strongly object to the official practice of your government to allow illegal car parking on Bremen’s pavements. This kind of car parking categorically transgresses the law and Road Traffic Regulations [Straßenverkehrsordnung]. Pavements are a public space for pedestrians. Pavements are not a private space for car parking.

The Bremer Senate has adopted the implementation plan of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN-CRPD), thereby binding Bremen’s government to its goals. Article 9 of the UN-CRPD commits the signatories to take appropriate measures to ensure to persons with disabilities access, on an equal basis with others, including the physical environment. These measures include the identification and elimination of obstacles and barriers to accessibility. Equal access includes access to spaces of public life and transport systems.

Personal mobility with a maximum of independence is supposed to be facilitated by the signatories (Article 20). Enabling personal mobility is a prerequisite to participation in public life.

These are the promises that the politicians and civic society organisations have signed up to and endorsed. Why is it possible that Bremen’s government does not promptly act on these promises of mobility free from barriers?  We demand that Bremen government officials implement the prevailing law and regulations.

We have identified you, Senator Mäurer, in your authority as Senator for City Affairs, to have the responsibility to ensure the orderly implementation of the UN-CRPD by the council. This means that the government, with immediate effect, should cease the deplorable practice that allows illegal car parking on pavements including the 5-metre junction rule.

We have noticed that the government have reinterpreted what they deem acceptable use of public space. Your government started to tolerate illegal car parking. This reinterpretation, however, does not take into account all users of public space. Your government’s reinterpretation is now restricting free movement on pavements. Yet, what is passing as acceptable use of pavements must be based on adopted policies of the government. Without appropriate signage, the parking of cars on pavements is illegal. A mobility free from barriers requires a minimum pavement width of two metres.
For many years citizens have informed the government of these illegalities. And often these incidents have been severe. The media also has amplified these voices: the negative impact of illegal car parking on children and mobility-impaired people, the loss of personal independence, public freedoms and equal access. The apparent leniency by your officials towards illegal car parking further exacerbates the situation: citizens are given the impression that the parking up of public space is acceptable.

The rigorous enforcement of illegal car parking has now become of paramount importance. The government should no longer tolerate dangerous and careless car parking. The government must equitably manage parking space and car parking.
In doing so, this would benefit Bremen’s citizenry on the whole: emergency services, deliveries, cycling, children, older people and people with impaired mobility.
The use of physical measures alone, such as bollards to prevent car parking, are not sufficient, and sometimes counterproductive: even more public space is wasted and new obstacles are created.  Furthermore, the gaps between bollards can too easily be re-interpreted as free space for parking.

The solutions to the challenge of cars in public space must be holistic.In sum, we ask you – as respectfully as we do forcefully – to notify your officials. The Bremen government must now enact policy and law and accordingly implement the UN-CRPD with immediate effect.

Yours faithfully

Bremer Alliance for Transport Transition (Bremen Friends of the Earth , VCD e.V., ADFC e.V. und FUSS e.V.)