What our election posters mean

Sustainable Urban Development like in Barcelona?

Volt aims to develop our city into an ecological, economical and socially sustainable community. This includes, aside from energetic renovation of older buildings, green roofing and effective usage of photovoltaic systems, the creation of public spaces not primarily used by cars. We want to expand the area available for pedestrians and cyclists

Barcelona is already on track to achieve these goals with their so called Superblocks. These are closed for transit traffic. 

Those areas can be repurposed for e.g.  picnic tables, playgrounds on former intersections, and parks. Darmstadt’s livability will greatly improve. In combination with additional measures like an attractive public transport and physically separated, safe bike lanes, this will further reduce noise levels in the city and help protect the climate.

Residents are still allowed to carefully navigate those areas by car. Transfer-traffic will be allowed on designated roads only while ensuring optimal traffic flow.

Digital education like in Helsinki?

Laptops and tablets for school students have been the norm for a long time in Helsinki, which both, students and teachers, greatly benefit from. Usage of digital tools is part of the reality of life in Helsinki and facilitates diverse teaching techniques tailored to each student and urgently needs to become part of our curricula as well. Digital teaching capabilities helped Helsinki weather the storm that was the corona pandemic: The messenger application Wilma has helped teachers communicate with students and parents for over ten years and has become an irreplaceable asset in everyday school life.

We at Volt are committed to make the digital transformation a reality in our schools. At the state level, we actively participate in the design of new and update of proven curricula, while at municipal level we support the deployment of hard- and software. We demand comprehensive training opportunities for teachers in relevant digital topics. Further we advocate for dedicated IT-personnel to be hired for school’s IT, so that teachers can in fact focus on students’ development.

We observe that even if funding for digital transformation is being provided by the state, schools often lack the necessary know-how or time to successfully complete the required paperwork and create concepts. In these cases, the municipalities must reach a helping hand, so that provisioned funding can be used.

Cycling like in Copenhagen?

Copenhagen has a cycle path network like no other city. More than 40% of inhabitants commute to work or school using their bikes, short distances show an even higher proportion of cyclists. In Copenhagen, people are in the focus of all developments concerning mobility. Cycling reduces noise and pollution, is cheaper and takes up less space. It is affordable to everyone and offers substantial flexibility. To enable the adoption of cycling on such a large scale, Copenhagen implemented synchronized traffic lights based on the needs of cyclists, wide bike paths and parking houses specifically designed for bicycles. Additionally, taking your bike with you on public transport is comfortable and free of charge.

Copenhagen has recognised early, and demonstrated by example, that people are willing to switch to cycling if it offers a true alternative with respect to comfort, safety and flexibility.

Political participation like in Reykjavik?

Using the digital voting platform „My Neighbourhood“, Reykjavik’s citizens vote to distribute three million euros to projects, annually. In preparation for this voting, every citizen has the option to hand in ideas. 200 of these ideas are then pre-selected by the city administration and voted on by the residents. Participation amongst citizens is extremely high and yields sizable satisfaction: Seeing the projects come to life is extremely motivating. The platform is made available as open source software by the initiator, hence the concept is actionable even for small municipalities. According to the initiator, it is of critical importance that the city administration takes voter participation seriously and actually implements the chosen projects.

Affordable housing like in Vienna?

Housing is a human right and must be ensured by state and municipal measures. The market does not guarantee equitable appropriate housing for everyone purely on its own and thus needs some correction alsoby the city. Sounds weird, but is already a reality in Austria’s capital Vienna: the city owns 220.000 apartments and is involved in 200.000 further units via non-profit organisations. These accommodations have capped rents, which impacts the housing market and lowers prices.

This is a collective undertaking, all residents contribute and profit jointly, as in Vienna, about 75% of the people satisfy the requirements for such a price capped housing option. Thus subsidy of housing is indeed a subsidy for the general middle class and therefore widely accepted. 

Even though social housing in Vienna looks back on a hundred years of tradition, it is not too late to follow suit, make affordable and appropriate housing a reality and improve livability in Darmstadt.

Public Transport like in Zurich?

Zurich is not only a pioneer when it comes to public transport but also one of the most livable cities in the world. This is no coincidence, but rather shows how good public transport impacts quality of life. Zurich takes a variety of measures to facilitate the switch from car to public transport: Vehicles are clean, stops never further than 300m away, bus and tram are closely coordinated, reliable and punctual.

In 2015 an astounding 41% of inner-city journeys were completed primarily using public transport. This is the result of a policy decision from 40 years ago, which established a preference for public transport in policy making and traffic management. Even though the population and number of commuters have risen steadily, the city has not increased road capacity, instead the focus was kept on public transport. The total amount of parking spots has been fixed since 1990 – if a new spot is created another must be removed. Zurich prevents traffic jams by limiting the number of concurrent cars in the city through an intelligently designed traffic guidance system. Self-acting traffic lights give the tram an automatic right of way.

Zurich shows: The sooner and more consequent we act, the better for us residents. Through consistent action over the years, Zurich has achieved fair and environmentally friendly mobility for its residents.