Hanover to become 'almost car-free' in radical transformation project

Hanover will remove nearly all street-side parking and introduce 12mph speed limit in a bid to banish cars and turn the city into ‘a place to party and stroll about’

• Mayor wants to turn Hanover into an  ‘almost car-free’ city in a radical new plan 
• On-street parking and traffic lights are to become a thing of the past
• Mayor Belit Onay says that he wants Hanover transformed by 2030 

Hanover has presented a radical plan to create an ‘almost car-free’ centre which will see on-street parking and traffic lights banished from the north German city.

Green mayor Belit Onay, elected on a ‘car-free’ ticket in 2019, presented his new vision for the city of half-a-million yesterday. It envisages gradually eliminating some 4,000 on-street parking spaces and ushering incoming cars through dead-end streets into eleven public garages.

‘Car-free means for us not one car too many,’ explained the Green party mayor who said that he wants the project to be completed by 2030. He said that he wants Hanover to be a ‘place to party and stroll about’ in. 

Works are expected to begin in the middle of next year on several key thoroughfares.

Residents of Hanover’s centre, of which there are some 4,000, will still be able to park their cars in private parking. 

Hanover, which was largely flattened by Allied bombing raids during the Second World War, was rebuilt in the decades that followed as a ‘car-friendly’ city 

The plans will be presented to Hanover city council on Tuesday.

‘The impression is often that we want to restrict movement,’ Mr Onay said. ‘The opposite is the case: there will be more movement, with less traffic in the city centre.’

City councillor Thomas Vielhaber explained the plans were intended to make Hanover more walkable. 

While most streets of 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 centre. Through traffic will be totally eliminated.

Speed limits of either 20 km/h (12 mph) or 30km/h (19 mph) will be put in place on streets that remain accessible to cars, while the number of spots to safely park bicycles will be expanded.

Hanover is also working on twelve planning cycle routes and adding thousands of new spaces for bicycle parking.

The project, which has been in the works for two-and-a-half years, also envisages making central Hanover ‘largely free of traffic lights’ so that pedestrians and cyclists spend as little time waiting at red lights as possible.

‘The time for experiments is over, now is the time for implementation,’ Mr Onay told the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung.

Hanover’s Green mayor wants to turn the city center into an almost totally ‘car-free’ zone

Hanover, which was almost entirely destroyed by Allied bombing raids during the Second World War, was rebuilt in the decades that followed as a model car-friendly city ringed by motorways. 

Mr Onay says that he wants Hanover to be a role model for other German cities transitioning their urban plans towards more pedestrian-friendly models.

‘For those who rely on a car, it will be easier to get into the city in the future because there will be less competing car traffic,’ Mr Onay promised. 

It is envisaged that the city centre will become better connected to surrounding areas by expanding routes across the Hanover ring road.

The ambitious plans are expected to cost millions of euros, but there is yet to be an exact cost projection. Mr Onay said that Hanover had already secured funding from state and federal governments worth upwards of €20m.

Mr Onay said that Hanover had gained ‘acceptance for this approach’ with experiments and consultations made over the past few years. ‘We are not starting from scratch,’ he added, describing the changes as a ‘huge opportunity’ for the city.

Hanover’s high streets have been suffering from competition with online retailers, and the city hopes that a redesigned urban plan could help jump-start the city’s economy. 

Mr Onay promised that Hanover would be turned into a ‘resilient retail hub’ through his vision.

The future of the car has become politically sensitive in a number of German cities over recent years. In Berlin, the Greens lost a re-election race to a pro-car candidate from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) after seeking to discourage their use in the German capital.

Mr Onay’s plans have already been receiving criticism from right-wing opponents. Felix Semper, a CDU councillor said that the Greens were ‘taking an axe to the future viability of the city.’

Mr Semper claimed that restricting vehicle traffic would damage local businesses and cause further buildings to lie empty in central Hanover.

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