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28. 11. 11. - 15:00

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28. 11. 11. - 15:00

Greens adamant about Vienna road toll

Vienna Vice Mayor Maria Vassilakou has vowed to keep fighting for a city road toll regulation.

The head of the Austrian Green Party’s Viennese branch admitted yesterday (Sun) her party agreed with the Viennese Social Democrats (SPÖ) not to set up such a restriction in the current legislature. However, Vassilakou stressed she would intensify coalition-internal talks to get the green light from the Social Democrats to a city road toll after 2015.

The Viennese SPÖ is strictly against a city road toll. The party’s stance on the issue is also seen as an attempt to stop voters from backing the People’s Party (ÖVP) or the Freedom Party (FPÖ) instead of the SPÖ in the coming city parliament elections. Both ÖVP and FPÖ have been generally critical about the current city coalition’s pro-cycling and public transport initiatives.

A majority of 75 per cent spoke out against a road toll for the Innere Stadt district of Vienna, its city centre, in a referendum in February 2010. More than 35 per cent of residents of the Austrian capital eligible to vote participated in the referendum which took place half a year before the most recent city ballot. The Greens garnered 12.64 per cent in the election, 1.99 per cent less than in 2005. The party agreed on forming a coalition with the city’s Social Democrats who suffered a decrease of around five per cent to 44.34 per cent in the election.

The Viennese Greens came under fire in the past weeks by the opposition factions but also some media over significant fee increases. The party is seen as the driving force behind a parking ticket price hike of more than 60 per cent. The increases will come into effect next March. Parking a car in the city’s most central districts for one hour will then cost two instead of 1.20 Euros. Other sorts of parking tickets will become dearer too. Only a few days later, the city government said owners of dogs would have to pay more for keeping the animals in 2012. Tap water provision charges and fees for waste disposal services will increase soon as well.

"We have to introduce fee increases," Greens councillor David Ellensohn claimed, adding that he wanted the federal government coalition of SPÖ and ÖVP to increase taxes on the country’s richest residents. Vassilakou added that a road toll system for the centre of the city would be a key aspect of her party’s fight against fine dust. She attacked federal ÖVP Environment Minister Nikolaus Berlakovich for claiming not to be in charge. Berlakovich said last week regional lawmakers had to decide on measures like driving bans and speed reductions to reduce the amount of fine dust particles in the air. Especially eastern Austria has struggled for days under alarmingly high fine dust figures in the past two weeks.

Vienna Green Party official Rüdiger Maresch caused a stir last week by calling for the introduction of a so-called environment zone. The party’s environmental issues spokesman said vehicles lacking eco-friendly engine systems should be kept out of Vienna from 2013 onwards to reduce fine dust figures and greenhouse gas emissions. Viennese SPÖ Environment Councillor Ulli Sima has already made clear she was critical of such a measure. Sima claimed similar steps in German capital Berlin had little impact on the situation there.

Austrian Times

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