The nine-euro ticket is to be extended beyond August. This is what the “Berlin car-free” referendum initiative calls for together with the youth organizations of the SPD and the Greens.
A petition started on Friday is intended to increase the pressure on politicians to offer the public transport service in the city, which runs until the end of August, for an unlimited period. The Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) and Transport Senator Bettina Jarasch (Greens) are called upon to “maintain affordable local transport for all Berliners”.
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The success of the ticket so far – more than 21 million copies have been sold nationwide, two million of them in Berlin – shows the need. “From September onwards, Berliners must not simply be left out in the rain,” explained Anna Baatz, spokeswoman for the Berlin car-free initiative and co-initiator of the petition. The proposals made by the Berlin government so far do not go far enough, criticized Baatz and called for “affordable local transport as a real alternative to the car in the long term”.
The text of the petition shows that the Jusos, Green Youth and Initiative do not want to stop at the perpetuation of the nine-euro ticket. It says: “In the medium term, retaining the nine-euro ticket is of course only the first step: we call on the Senate to examine how ticket-free local transport can be implemented in Berlin. In this way, the bureaucracy could be reduced enormously, ticket controls could be abolished and even more people could be brought to local transport.”
A connection to local rail transport for all parts of the city and the surrounding area is also required. The demands are to be paid, among other things, by expanding parking space management and increasing parking fees in zones that are already managed.
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“Funds for road expansion, especially for climate-damaging projects such as the extension of the tangential connection east (TVO), could be canceled,” it said. By late Friday afternoon, just over 300 people had signed the petition.
Franziska Giffey, on the other hand, got involved in the debate about the proposal to offer a nationwide valid ticket for local public transport at a price of 69 euros from September. She spoke out in favor of the SPD proposal, namely the introduction of a 365-euro ticket: “The nine-euro ticket has proven to be a very effective relief. That’s why I think we need a connecting ticket: it should be our goal be to enable mobility for no more than one euro per day,” she explained via Twitter under the hashtag
