A parking sticker has been required in all 23 districts of Vienna for a year now. According to the city, parking space utilization has fallen sharply, in Kaisermühlen in the Donaustadt district, utilization has dropped from around 100 to 63 percent. The Donaustadt district leader Ernst Nevrivy (SPÖ) draws a positive balance. Now there is more space for cyclists, pedestrians and green spaces. “We’ll do all of that in the next few months,” he promises.
Action too slow
Before that, however, an evaluation must be awaited. “Good counts, where we know what is actually needed for the people of Donaustadt and where it is only the guests who may come to the subway. We can then use that in the coming months and years,” said Nevrivy. Too slow and too late says traffic planner Ulrich Leth from the Technical University (TU) Vienna.
The opportunity would not have been used, because most of the free parking spaces would have been directly following the introduction of the parking sticker. “Up to 80,000 are rumored, but they were not immediately converted. And then the effect set in that the parking spaces gradually filled up once more with cars that were previously in garages. Because action was not taken immediately, this effect has largely evaporated,” says Leth.
Domestic traffic increased once more
In the meantime, domestic traffic in the districts has increased once more. In the other park sticker districts that have been added, there are only a few plans as to what should happen to the space. At least they have not been presented. “The measures would have been obvious,” says Leth. “There are simple ways to quickly redistribute space. That would be, for example, that pavement parking spaces, i.e. parking spaces that are marked on sidewalks, are immediately placed on the roadway, that inclined parking spaces are turned into parallel parking spaces.” But safe cycle paths in the form of pop-up cycle paths are also an option.
District manager Nevrivy also agrees. “If we don’t reduce the space that is now reserved for car traffic, then there won’t be fewer cars either.” You have to do that gradually. However, according to Nevrivy, a cycle path or sidewalk should not be a “declaration of war” once morest motorists. “We actually want to improve the offers.” However, it is still unclear when this will happen.
