Leave the car at home for seven weeks: For the twelfth time, associations and churches in Thuringia are calling for car fasting. This year, the campaign is also intended to be a test run - for the planned Germany ticket.
Erfurt (dpa/th) - According to the organizers of this year's car fasting campaign, not having your own car should make you want to drive through the country with the Germany ticket in the near future. The chairman of the bus transport association
The managing director of the Verkehrsverbund Mittelthüringen, Christoph Heuing, made a similar statement. With car fasting, people in Thuringia could try in the next seven weeks what it was like to use public transport instead of their own car.
The "Car fasting. Experience everyday life anew" campaign begins on Wednesday - parallel to Lent - and lasts until Holy Saturday. The aim is to encourage people to reconsider their own mobility habits and to use public transport more often instead of their own car. Individual transport companies offer special Autofasten tickets during this time, with which people are to be introduced to local public transport in a particularly cheap way.
The campaign is now taking place for the twelfth time. It is supported by the Verkehrsverein Bus
According to the current plans, the Deutschlandticket should be able to be used for journeys from May 1st. This is a ticket for local transport that is valid throughout Germany. It will cost 49 euros per month. However, Heuing pointed out that this price was not enough to further expand the existing local public transport services. More public funds would have to be made available for this, he said.
The Catholic bishop of Erfurt, Ulrich Neymeyr, and the regional bishop of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany, Friedrich Kramer, explained that it was necessary, especially in rural areas, to expand local transport so that even more people left their cars at home more often. He himself knows how difficult it is in Thuringia to come to church on Sunday without a car, said Neymeyr.
Thuringia's Minister of Transport, Susanna Karawanskij (left), on the other hand, said it was important that people in rural areas also got involved with existing alternatives to the car. You hear again and again that it supposedly doesn't work to cycle to the next baker or butcher there. "But that's not true at all."
