Ever since ditching car culture and joining the urbanist cause (on the internet at least but that has to change), I’ve noticed that some countries always top the list when it comes to good urbanism. The first and most oblivious one tends to be The Netherlands but Germany and Japan also come pretty close. But that’s strange considering that both countries have huge car industries. Germany is (arguably) the birthplace of the car (Benz Patent-Motorwagen) and is home to Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW. Japan is home to Toyota, Honda, Nissan and among others. How is it that these countries have been able to keep the auto lobby at bay and continue investing in their infrastructure?
As others have said, Germany is not as bad as the US (at least as far as I can tell looking at the US from the outside), but it’s still fucking terrible and will likely get worse under future governments, which are all but guaranteed to be right-wing, quite possibly including the outright fascists of the AfD.
Public transport is useless, especially the train network, which is horribly outdated technically and has been gutted by quasi-privatisation. Trains are frequently late or cancelled (which counts as on time for German Rail’s statistics). If you don’t live in a city you basically have to own a car because of this, especially in smaller towns where there might only be like two busses a day (or none at all). There are some small improvements being made in cities, but they are hugely lacking and slow. They will also likely not survive future governments, which are promising car-centric policies and trying to import the anti-cyclist culture war from the US.
So yeah, it’s bleak and the future looks even bleaker. With how things are going politically at the moment urbanism will be the least of our worries though.
I always thought Germany had a solid public transport system (I’ve been there like 1 time maybe), but as you are describing it it sounds awfully similar to Italy.
I suppose the perspective is relative. Frequent cancellations of trains is bad, but not as bad as no PT at all, as is all too common in US.
Bleak, bleaker, the bleakest.
It certainly seems to me like the majority of people (in cities) welcomes less cars and more pedestrian / bicycle infrastructure. At least if the removal of street parking happens NIMBY. Certainly cities are pushing for this, throughout all the parties, maybe not the afd and the fdp when they tried to scratch 5% of voters from the bottom of the barrel in the east with their “more cars into the cities, less pedestrians and cyclists”. Even the adac (huge german car interest group) thought this was a stupid idea.
The news and readers comments in local newspaper were way more cycle infra critical some years ago. I think german cities are moving in the right direction, it is getting better, although slowly, i don’t share your pessimism.
Sure, the FDP is mostly irrelevant at the moment, but the AfD got the 2nd most votes in the recent EU elections, right behind the CDU/CSU which are also very much pro car and anti bike infrastructure. In the east the AfD often got more votes than any other party in most places. The upcoming state elections won’t go any better either. None of the current ruling parties are going to be in the next government when Germany has its federal elections next year. It’s going to be a right wing government and I have zero faith in the CDU/CSU not to form a coalition with the AfD when the time comes. Things are really fucked here at the moment and they are going to get much worse before they get better (if they get better at all).
I don’t quite share your sentiment. Although FDP tends to yap a lot about car infrastructure, investments into train infrastructure in Germany are at a record high. Still far too low, I agree, but it’s not getting worse. And I don’t see AfD joining any government on national level anytime soon. Also, cycling infrastructure is more a local topic and most cities are still center-left. Outside of cities I don’t see biking infrastructure improving either, though.