Berlin: Too many cars on the roads
Despite much talk about a mobility turnaround, the number of cars in the capital continues to increase. However, environmental zones and diesel driving bans ensured that significantly fewer internal combustion cars were newly registered. But this is not enough to reduce CO2 emissions.
28,691 cars hit the streets of Berlin in the first half of 2022, 8.5 per cent fewer than in the previous year. This was announced by the Berlin-Brandenburg State Office for Statistics when the authority published the declining number of newly registered vehicles. However, this did not mean that Berlin was gradually saying goodbye to individual mobility. While the registration of fewer vehicles already represented a small victory for the environment, it did not ensure substantial changes when the general number of car owners and thus of cars on the road increased. And, according to the Federal Office, this is growing faster than the population - from 334 cars per 1000 inhabitants to 336 within five years.
The fact that new registration rates are declining is instead due to the significantly lower number of new registrations of combustion cars. With 14,148 cars, about one fifth less diesel and petrol cars were registered from the beginning of the current year until June. This trend could be optimistic if the figures did not prove that there are still too many used combustion cars on the road.
Instead, alternative drives are increasingly playing a role among new registrations. Especially hybrid cars - with 10,648 new vehicles and a growth of 6.4 percent - cover a large part of the market. The at least partially more environmentally friendly pure electric cars, on the other hand, make up only a manageable share of Berlin's new registration statistics. Only 3603 new cars were registered on Berlin's roads in the first half of the year, an increase of only 4.5 per cent.
Although there is often talk of a mobility turnaround in the context of various initiatives - and although alternative fuels are gaining a foothold - the number of vehicles has ultimately increased. "Even more cars in Berlin - and we ask ourselves: how is this going to continue?" says Ragnhild Sørensen from Changing Cities. But it is clear, says Sørensen, that "Berlin must also reduce CO2 emissions in the transport sector by half by 2030".
And to achieve this goal, the civic association proposes a number of measures. Among them, namely, the reduction of parking spaces by 60,000 per year, the reduction of subsidies and the expansion of public transport. Above all, the expansion of the public transport network should guarantee equal access to public transport for residents of all parts of the city and thus prevent Berliners outside the S-Bahn ring from always having to resort to the private car.
The transport policy interventions undertaken so far do not seem to be sufficient to significantly reduce the number of vehicles. Although Berlin was one of the first environmental zones in Germany, the restrictions there have not deterred enough citizens from driving. However, an extension of the area affected, so that it also includes streets outside the Ringbahn, as well as stricter diesel driving bans could still be a solution.
For a real mobility turnaround to take place, it is not only the politicians who need to roll up their sleeves and create the practical conditions for it. Each of us should also rethink our mobility habits and make environmentally conscious decisions.