Renters with cars are discriminated against in the city of Bern. The left-wing city government sees no problem in this, the media portal “Megafon” of the riding school, which is even further to the left, is bursting at the seams.
The people of Bern and the bike – everlasting love?
As a person from Zurich, one is only surprised at the point in time. Because low-car living is almost standard on the Limmat. The Sihlbogen housing estate with 220 apartments has had almost no parking spaces for almost ten years. To ensure that it stays that way, the administration prepares annual control reports for the City of Zurich. They should prove “that the mobility concept works as intended and that the tenants adhere to the regulations on car ownership set out in the rental agreement”.
1 apartment – 0.2 parking spaces
So now the debate has reached Bern. It all started with a young woman complaining in the News portal «Nau». She and her partner, who relies on a car for work, were interested in an apartment in a car-free urban development. The couple understood car-free: If you have a car, you have to look for a parking space somewhere else. But the interested parties were wrong. The property management of the city of Bern wants car-free tenants. Car owners must stay outside. Period. There are 0.2 parking spaces for a municipal apartment in Bern. And that, according to the office, is long enough.
Discrimination against people who depend on a car is intentional. Compared to “Nau”, the head of the department for real estate in the city of Bern honestly assured that the concept of car-free living would be “generally well received”. Finally, interested parties are informed that the apartments are rented out to people who could do without their own car. Potential tenants with their own car would therefore generally refrain from applying. In addition to excellent public transport, there are also Mobility and Publibike locations within a short distance: “All of this enables active and flexible mobility, even without a car.”
Criticism from the right came promptly. The Stadtberner Jungfreisinnigen wrote in a media release that workers and craftsmen were apparently no longer wanted in city apartments. The leading social democrats preferred people who worked comfortably in the home office. For example, how is a tram driver supposed to fetch the first tram from the depot seven kilometers away in the morning in snow and ice if she is not allowed to own a car?
Bicycle Fetishism
The bicycle fetishism of the Bern city government is not only annoying for the citizens. On Twitter, the mouthpiece of the super-left riding school cultural center, the “Megafon”, burst its collar: “Something like this happens when left-wing politics is limited to fucking bike promotion,” the portal raged. People with disabilities who depend on a car are simply forgotten. The lovely governing parties SP, Grüne Frei Liste and Grünes Bündnis, who set the tone, should perhaps think beyond the realities of their personal lives.
The dear, leading green mayor of Bern, Alec von Graffenried, does not even think of that in his dreams. In the fall, he told the “Weltwoche”: “The bourgeoisie are failing in the cities because they have the wrong transport policy. They ignore the needs of the population.”
Von Graffenried is right. If the FDP and SVP in the cities hadn’t taken it upon themselves to save as many parking spaces as possible, the bourgeoisie might not have been so lost in urban areas: in the long run, the canonization of parking spaces tires voters just as much as their demonization. Political parking lot arithmetic can actually only go wrong. Even if they are in the name of – excuse me – «f. . .ing Veloförderung» happens.