Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) has expressed doubts that the ambitious climate targets in the transport sector can be achieved by 2030. “You can’t do everything at once,” said the head of government on Tuesday in Stuttgart. Since you have to help finance the planned 49-euro ticket as a country, you have to make compromises elsewhere. In the budget for 2023/2024 there is no money for the mobility guarantee planned by Transport Minister Winfried Hermann (Greens) from 2026. For this purpose, public transport should actually be greatly expanded, especially in rural areas. “Ultimately, of course, the budget limits such projects,” said Kretschmann.
In order to achieve its climate goals, the country would have to reduce greenhouse gases in transport by 55 percent within seven years. Recently, however, CO2 emissions from traffic have even increased. Kretschmann said it would be difficult to achieve this goal. “That’s why I’m not involved in the race to formulate ever stricter goals.” He called on the municipalities to find ways themselves to finance the expansion of the bus and train lines.
The “mobility guarantee” planned in the coalition agreement stipulates that all places in the southwest should be accessible by public transport from 5 a.m. to midnight. The state actually wants to achieve by 2026 that in rural areas the half-hourly service applies during peak traffic times and in metropolitan areas the quarter-hourly service. In the second stage up to 2030, it should then apply throughout the day that in metropolitan areas every 15 minutes will be driven and in rural areas every 30 minutes. In order to finance the project, the state wants, among other things, to give the municipalities the opportunity to introduce a local transport tax. Then the municipalities could decide whether to ask all residents or just drivers to pay.