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Steirische Verkehrsplaner haben die Chance des CoV-Lockdowns ungenutzt verstreichen lassen

45,000 cars a day on the Bahnhofgürtel, 30,000 vehicles on the Glacis along the Graz Stadtpark, traffic jams not only at peak times: Mobility planner Kurt Fallast speaks of a missed opportunity after the lockdown.

“Restart should have been tried differently”.

Car traffic would not have had to be brought back up everywhere and some streets could have been used differently: “The upswing and the new start could have been tried differently. On Murkai as such, for example, from the Kunsthaus to Mariahilferplatz and the connection to the other side of the Mur – there I have the Kunsthauskaffee, which I can extend to the Mur, the Tribecca as well. Where the car goes, public life, pedestrians, cyclists, shopping, strolling should move in.”

Unbundle peak times

But the alternative use of traffic areas still doesn’t solve the general problem of congestion at peak times, says Kurt Fallast: “If I make the working hours and start times of schools more flexible, I reduce peaks, but I still bring people into the city. You can’t keep people out, we need the workforce, the customers, the students, the visitors, but they don’t all have to drive into town between seven-thirty and eight.”

And they don’t all have to drive into town by private car, the mobility planner argues in favor of using public transportation. Fallast suggests creating an express bus lane on three-lane highways, “That would be an issue where the other two lanes that are congested realize that on the right the bus is going past them straight to Graz.”

Multimodularity will increase

However, Kurz Fallast is realistic about the possibilities of public transport: “If I live in Eibiswald or somewhere up on Seggauberg, then of course I need my car to get to the train. It’s not against the car, but multimodality will increase.” This means that several means of transport are used for one route in order to ultimately relieve urban traffic as much as possible.