ll It With the emotional contact gone, the irrational use of cars will be weakened. Well, we have the experience of more and more people really being interested in collective car use. Because there is no reason to own a car if you have the same service without, and it is cheaper, and it is ecologically conscious. People in Germany are becoming more ecologically aware and say "I'd rather do something for my kids than living in such luxury that I always must have my own car." I don't know if this is important in the US, but here it is. The Green Party is in third place here. In 3 years, when we have the next election, I'm convinced there will be a red-green coalition government. Then we will have laws supporting carsharing and reducing car owning, or raising taxes for car owning. So I think this is the future. Well, it has to be the future. If we organize our mobility for many more years in the way we do, we will really have tremendous damage, global-warming storms and acid rains. This year the Rhine flooded with billions in damages. It will be the same effect in the whole western world, I'm convinced. So, it is very good to reduce traffic by collective cars: otherwise, if you say we have to forbid car owning or things like that, the lobby is so strong against it that you can't win. But if you say we don't want to take your mobility, your car driving, but we only want to organize it better, then it is a real offer. You always win if you start with an offer. Car owning is pretty expensive, is the point. Of course, millions of people would never break this strong contact with their car, and you can never reach them. But you can hope. Private cars are very neurotic things in our communities, and you can only hope neurotic behavior will weaken. You can't solve those problems, but you can tell people it is not so important and after awhile they say they don't really need one. DJ: Is it true that there's a full-time carsharing promoter in the Dutch government ? CP: The state did a lot to help carsharing there, installing the thing, making surveys, and everything. But I'm not sure they did it in the right way because when the state becomes interested in something, you have at least 50 institutes that want money and don't want to do anything. They just want to write things. We don't need people to write things! We need them to organize so"me things! Nobody does, so the movement there is pretty weak, but the flow of money is pretty strong. So something is wrong. DJ: Would you prefer to not have a national German coordinator of carsharing? CP: The government should do something, not give away money. A law that gives carsharing cars free parking spaces. They can do it. The city government could do that. The argument for that is that taxis have reserved spaces in the public street where they can stand and wait for customers. We argue that carsharing is very similar, it's just taxis without a driver. The whole structure is very similar. You have to phone and you pay only for the using, not for the car. All costs are paid by the driving, which is the same for taxis. But you have a chauffeur, that you don't have with · carsharing. It is proven that it is ecological and very good for the traffic in a city. It reduces car movements and frees up parking spaces. DJ: Bremen, Germany had a building development that doesn't have private car parking. They use carsharing cars instead. CP: Yes. They want to do this in Berlin. There is quite a big quarter in Berlin where if you want to rent an apartment or buy one, you will have to sign that you are not owning a car, otherwise you wouldn't come there. And there are no streets, just walking, biking, emergency access. Normal cars can't come in. There is a bus and subway station there and if you can't manage without a car there will be a carsharing station nearby. DJ: Is this available yet? CP: No, it is built in Bremen. 200 apartments. But just planned in Berlin and Ttibingen, where the French troops moved out and now they have the space for about 5,000 apartments. Below. Berlin's large sidewalks contain dearly marked bike paths. Different colored pavement shows bikes what space is theirs. Right. Bike traffic light. RAIN Summer 1996 Volume XV, Number 1 Page 51
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