For climate protection reasons, since 1 March all car drivers throughout Vienna have to pay for standing. From 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. parking is only allowed for two hours. This is intended to halve commuter traffic.
Since the beginning of the month, parking in the whole of Vienna has been subject to a charge and limited to two hours. For 20 years there has been a so-called "Parkpickerl" (parking permit) to allow parking for longer periods in Vienna. This last cost 120 euros, but is only for residents. Initially limited to a few districts, the parking restrictions now apply to all 23 districts of Vienna.
Every day, 200,000 workers commute to the Austrian capital. But all those who do not live in the posh city locations will now feel this in their purse. The goal is to get commuters to switch to public transport. The aim is to halve commuter traffic by 2030. Only those who park for less than a quarter of an hour can still do so free of charge. All others pay 1.10 euros per half hour or part thereof, i.e. 4.40 euros for the permitted two hours.
For employees who drive to work and whose employers do not pay for free parking spaces, it will now be much more difficult. Criticism is being voiced by business people, craftsmen and care workers. Business people fear for customers, craftsmen will pass on the parking fees to their customers and care workers fear that the mobility of care-intensive groups will be massively restricted.
On the other hand, Vienna has a dense public transport network and the underground trains run at intervals of a few minutes during rush hours. The biggest plus point, however, is the ticket: an annual ticket costs one euro a day, i.e. a total of 365 euros - by comparison, in Berlin an annual ticket costs over 1,000 euros. In the future, 100 per cent of the revenue generated by the parked cars will be used to expand public transport. It is expected that up to 170 million euros will be generated by the residents' ticket and parking fees.
The German Association of Cities sees the current Viennese model as an opportunity for Germany to hold back the growing flood of cars in the cities and to finance the urgently needed expansion of public transport.
Another possibility, of course, would be to extend the Vienna Low Emission Zone, which is currently limited to vans and trucks, to passenger cars. In this way, all cars would be obliged to display an environmental sticker and the vehicles that emit particularly high levels of pollutants would be banned from the city centre. Then one could speak of a real traffic turnaround.