Bonn should be a livable city for everyone: with safe traffic routes, especially for children and the elderly, cleaner air and less noise, and an attractive range of environmentally friendly means of transport. This can be achieved through mobility that is designed to be sustainable and climate-friendly. Through a fair reallocation of public spaces, there will once again be more room in the city to linger and meet.
The path to a mobility turnaround in Bonn
Mobility turnaround means shifting mobility to environmentally compatible alternatives. In 2019, the Bonn City Council adopted the goal of becoming climate-neutral by 2035. Because traffic accounts for more than half a million kilograms of carbon dioxide a year, more than a quarter of the city's total emissions, it was decided in this context that at least 75 percent of journeys should be made using environmentally friendly and space-saving forms of mobility by 2030. For this reason, the city is strengthening public transport, cycling and walking. These modes of transport protect the climate and the environment, they ensure better air and less noise. In this way, the city can become quieter, cleaner and greener for the people of Bonn.
The city of Bonn puts people and their needs for mobility and quality of life in the city at the center of its planning – not individual means of transport. In this way, the mobility turnaround strengthens social participation for all citizens of Bonn.
“The mobility turnaround makes our city quieter and greener, and all people can live healthier here. During the Corona pandemic, we noticed how important open spaces in the city are for all of us. Streets should once again become places to meet, with seating and space to play. The mobility turnaround is a great challenge, but an even greater opportunity to improve the lives of all our Bonn residents. Together, we can make it happen!”
Mayor Katja Dörner
Mobility turnaround: Right of way for the climate
How can we make our mobility more climate-friendly? This was one of the questions asked in the course of the city's largest participatory process to date, on which 280 Bonn citizens worked together (German Website: Bonn4Future – Wir fürs Klima).
The results of this participatory process have found their way into the overall Bonn strategy for achieving climate neutrality.
The strategy for the mobility field of action is based on three pillars:
- Avoiding motorized traffic through fewer, more shared, and shorter trips overall.
- Shifting motorized traffic to environmentally friendly modes of transport such as walking, cycling or public transport.
- Switching to climate-friendly drive systems (electromobility).
An important aspect of the topic of mobility is the space consumption of different means of transport. While cars consume a lot of space – both when driving and when parking – the means of transport of the environmental network, such as buses, trains or bicycles, take up significantly less space. These means of transport are more efficient in transporting people, i.e. they can get more people from A to B while using the same space.
Today, more than four million kilometres are still travelled by car every day in Bonn's urban area. Many of these kilometres are driven on short routes through the city and could be replaced by a train or bus ride, cycling or walking. And driving by bike or public transport is even cheaper.