Hannover has outlined a radical plan to create an “almost car-free” center that will see on-street parking and traffic lights banned from the northern German city.
Green mayor Belit Onay, elected on the “car-free” list in 2019, presented yesterday his new vision for the city of half a million inhabitants. It plans to phase out some 4,000 on-street parking spaces and direct cars arriving on dead-end streets to eleven public garages.
“For us, no car means not one car too many,” explained the Greens mayor, who said he wanted the project to be completed by 2030. He said he wanted Hanover to be “a place to party and hang out” in .
Work should begin in the middle of next year on several major axes.
The 4,000 residents of central Hanover will still be able to park their cars in a private car park.
Hanover, which was largely razed by Allied bombing during World War II, was rebuilt in the decades that followed to become a “car-friendly” city.
The plans will be presented to the Hanover city council on Tuesday.
“The impression is often that we want to restrict movement,” Mr. Onay said. “It’s the opposite: there will be more movement, with less traffic in the city center.”
City Councilor Thomas Vielhaber explained that the plans aim to make Hanover more walkable.
While most streets in the historic Old Town will no longer be accessible to most cars, taxis, delivery vans and disabled drivers will still be able to access the city center. Transit traffic will be completely eliminated.
Speed limits of 20 km/h (12 mph) or 30 km/h (19 mph) will be put in place on streets that remain accessible to cars, while the number of places to park bicycles safely will be increase.
Hannover is also working on planning twelve cycle paths and adding thousands of new bicycle parking spaces.
The project, in the works for two and a half years, also plans to make the center of Hanover “largely free of traffic lights”, so that pedestrians and cyclists spend as little time as possible waiting at red lights.
“The time for experimentation is over, it is now time to implement,” Mr. Onay told Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung.
Green mayor of Hannover wants to make the city center an almost completely “car-free” zone
Hanover, which was almost completely destroyed by Allied bombing during World War II, was rebuilt in the decades that followed to become a car-friendly model city surrounded by highways.
Mr. Onay says he wants Hanover to be a model for other German cities that are shifting their urban plans toward more pedestrian-friendly models.
“For those who rely on a car, it will be easier to get to the city in the future because there will be less competing car traffic,” Mr Onay promised.
It is planned that the city center will become better connected to surrounding areas by widening the roads crossing the Hannover ring road.
These ambitious projects are expected to cost millions of euros, but there is no exact cost projection yet. Mr Onay said Hannover had already secured funding from state and federal governments worth more than €20 million.
Mr Onay said Hanover had gained “acceptance of this approach” through experiments and consultations over the past few years. “We’re not starting from scratch,” he added, calling the changes a “huge opportunity” for the city.
Hanover’s main streets are suffering from competition from online retailers, and the city hopes a revamped urban plan could help revive the city’s economy.
Mr Onay promised Hannover would become a “resilient retail hub” through his vision.
The future of the automobile has become politically sensitive in a number of German cities in recent years. In Berlin, the Greens lost their re-election to a pro-auto car candidate from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) after seeking to discourage their use in the German capital.
Mr. Onay’s plans have already drawn criticism from right-wing opponents. CDU city councilor Felix Semper said the Greens were “putting the future viability of the city at risk”.
Semper said restricting vehicle traffic would hurt local businesses and leave other buildings empty in central Hanover.