HEIDELBERG, Germany – Eckart Würzner, a mayor on the mission to liberate his city, was not very impressed by promises from General Motors, Ford and other major carmakers to swear off fossil fuels.
Not that Mr. Würzner, the mayor of Heidelberg, is not against electric cars. The postcard-perfect city, in the south of Germany, gives residents who buy a battery-powered vehicle a bonus of up to € 1,000, or $ 1,200. They get another € 1,000 if they install a charging station.
But electric cars are low on the list of tools that Mr. Würzner used to try to reduce Heidelberg’s impact on the climate, an effort given by the city, home to Germany’s oldest university and an 800 – year – old castle ruin, a reputation as a pioneer in environmentally conscious urban planning.
Würzner’s goal is to reduce the dependence on cars, no matter where they get juice. Heidelberg buys a fleet of hydrogen-powered buses, builds a network of “highways” for cycling to the suburbs and designs neighborhoods to discourage all vehicles and encourage them to walk. Residents who give up their cars can ride public transport for free for a year.
“If you need a car, use the car to share,” he said. Würzner said in an interview in the city hall of Baroque in Heidelberg, who was almost abandoned due to the pandemic. “If you can not use the car part because you live too far outside and there is no mass transport, then use the car, but only to the train station and not to the city center.”
Heidelberg is at the forefront of a movement that is probably the strongest in Europe, but which is present in many communities around the world, including American cities such as Austin, Texas and Portland, Ore. The pandemic has given many citizens a taste of what dense urban areas would be without so much traffic, and they like it.
Vows about fossil fuel abstinence by carmakers over the past month, including GM, Ford Motor and Jaguar Land Rover, are a tacit acknowledgment that they will no longer be welcome in cities at all unless they radically clean up their actions. Even then, the tide of history may be against them as city planners try to free up the space now occupied by vehicles.
Dozens of cities in Europe, including Rome, London and Paris, plan to restrict city traffic to emission-free vehicles over the next decade. Some, such as Stockholm and Stuttgart, the German home of Mercedes-Benz, already ban older diesel vehicles.
National governments are contributing to the pressure. Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Slovenia say they will ban the sale of internal combustion engines after 2030. Britain and Denmark say they will do so in 2035, allowing only hybrids after 2030, and Spain and France in 2040.
Such intent statements “definitely push vehicle manufacturers,” said Sandra Wappelhorst, a senior researcher at the International Council on Clean Transport in Berlin, who follows plans by businesses and governments to phase out internal fires.
Heidelberg, a city of 160,000 people on the Neckar River, which is threatening to flood its banks this month after exceptionally heavy rains, offers a glimpse of what a car-lit city of the future might look like.
Heidelberg is one of only six cities in Europe that are considered ‘innovators’ by C40 Cities, an organization that promotes climate-friendly urban policy and whose chairman is Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York. (The others are Oslo, Copenhagen, Venice and Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.)
Some of the city’s measures to make cars irrelevant are to build bridges that allow cyclists to bypass congested areas or cross the Neckar without competing for motor vehicles around the road space.
Buildings are also important. The city has reduced the energy consumption of schools and other city buildings by 50 percent over the past decade. This is no small feat as many of the structures are hundreds of years old.
Battery-powered vehicles do not pollute the air, but they take up just as much space as petrol models. Mr Würzner complains that Heidelberg still suffers from traffic jams, even though only about 20 percent of residents drive around by car. The rest walk, bike, or take the electric buses that lift the narrow, cobbled streets of the city’s old quarter.
“Commuters are the biggest problem we have not solved yet,” he said. Würzner said. This past weekday there was a lot of traffic despite the pandemic.
Electric cars are also expensive. At current prices, it is beyond the reach of lower-income residents. Political leaders need to offer affordable alternatives, such as public transportation or bike trails, Ms. Wappelhorst of the Clean Transport Council said.
“It’s ultimately not just about cars,” she said. “You need the whole package.”
The pedestrian zone of Heidelberg, which is usually full of tourists but recently almost empty due to the pandemic, is reportedly Germany’s longest. But the best showcase for the city’s release-free ambitions was built on top of a former railway yard on the outskirts of the city.
In 2009 work began on the Bahnstadt, or Rail City. The vacant package, which had to be cleared of three unexploded bombs from World War II, offered the planners an empty slate to create a climate-neutral environment.
The modern apartment buildings, architecturally the opposite of the baroque city center of Heidelberg, are so well insulated that they require almost no energy to heat. What heat they need comes from a plant just outside the environment that burns waste wood.
Cars are not banned from the Bahnstadt, but there is almost no traffic. Most streets are dead ends. Apartment buildings are arranged around spacious courtyards with playgrounds and are connected by walkways. The one street that cuts through the triangular area has a speed limit of 30 kilometers per hour, or less than 20 miles per hour. Bicycles have the preferential right.
The Bahnstadt, with 5,600 inhabitants and still growing, has its own nursery and primary school, a community center, two supermarkets, several bakeries and cafes, two bicycle shops and six car stations, each with two electric vehicles. Heidelberg’s main station and a tram stop are a short walk away, and a cycle path follows the route of an old railway line to the city center.
There is also work. The Bahnstadt has several large office buildings, the tenants of which include the German subsidiary of Reckitt Benckiser, the manufacturer of consumer products such as Clearasil and Woolite.
“The idea is to return to the classic early city, where living and work are now intertwined,” said Ralf Bermich, head of Heidelberg’s environmental protection office.
Dieter Bartmann, who was one of the first people in the Bahnstadt in 2012, has a car, but it is according to him that he drove it about 20 kilometers in January, mostly to the supermarket to pick up staples that were too bulky fill. to carry his bicycle.
Mr. Bartmann, a former manager of SAP, the software industry headquartered in nearby Walldorf, was sitting on a bench next to a promenade bordering one side of the Bahnstadt. The area is blocked for motorized traffic and overlooks fields. Runners, cyclists and people on in-line skates slip past.
It looked idyllic on a sunny winter day, but Mr. Bartmann, former chairman of the Bahnstadt Residents Association, said there are still things that could be improved.
He wants to do more to keep cars out, for example by blocking the street. Some buildings have underground garages, but they are not built for electric cars and do not offer easy charging points. The paved promenade is not wide enough, said Mr. Bartmann said, which led to conflict between cyclists and pedestrians.
But he added: ‘It’s a high complaint. You have to be realistic. ”
Mr Würzner, the mayor, said his goal was to make Heidelberg climate-neutral by 2030, an ambitious target. The city plans to generate its own wind and solar power and install a hydrogen filling station for a fleet of 42 buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The city wanted to order hundreds of buses, but Mr. Würzner complained that the bus manufacturers were slow to respond to the demand for emission-free transport.
“We can not get enough,” he said. (Daimler, which makes buses in Neu-Ulm, about two and a half hours from Heidelberg, does not yet sell a hydrogen-powered city bus.)
Mr Würzner, who drives an experimental Mercedes-hydrogen-powered car, acknowledged that not every city could afford to do all the things that made Heidelberg a showcase for environmentally friendly planning. The University of Heidelberg, one of Germany’s most prestigious universities, has produced numerous research institutes that offer a solid tax base. The inhabitants tend to be well educated and prosperous.
“It’s true that the city is in a pretty good financial situation,” he said. Würzner said.
But he said he had often heard of mayors in Europe, the United States and Asia who wanted to follow Heidelberg’s strategy.
“We all know we have to go in this direction,” he said. “It’s just a question of how fast.”