E in a frustrated subway user (“Stay back, please!”) and a cheerful highway engineer (“Not with me!”). With this poster motif, Autobahn GmbH is recruiting fresh staff in the Hamburg subways. Which is then supposed to help fulfill the sole, but even more base purpose of this lobby organization. Namely, to continue to create the conditions for the immeasurable demands, destruction and destruction caused by motor vehicles.
In our area alone they are planning to build hundreds of kilometers of new highways through nature. There are already four motorways around here. None of their driveways are more than eight kilometers away. Nevertheless – or as I would argue – that’s exactly why 12,000 cars rattle through our village every day. Many of them really fast; But of course, you know: They all always have to go to work urgently. They also have to do this on Sundays and public holidays. Sometimes it’s particularly urgent at night.
It’s a shame, of course, if not everyone gets there. Then the sirens wail here and you can hear the fire brigade or the emergency doctor come out with their super loud sirens. And a few days later you can see the photos in the weekly paper of what’s left if someone didn’t make it again. So much for the fairy tale about car nuisances decreasing with more roads. The opposite is the case, which has long been scientifically proven.
“But we rely on cars,” the drivers immediately honk as if they had been annoyed. Or as the people here in the country always quack: “Yes, if I lived in the city, with public transport on my doorstep and short distances. Then I wouldn’t need a car.” However, the car-infested cities show that this is just a stupid excuse. In fact, it is the shame-free passion for cars that – as Federal Environment Minister Carsten Schneider (SPD) has just confirmed again (“Really cool cars!”) – drives motorists. In the country as well as in the cities. And anyway: If you are dependent on something, you should go to addiction counseling.
Park forever
But anyone who believes they have to practice closing the gap with Autobahn GmbH should park forever. That’s what people in motorway circles like to say about new motorways: closing the gap. In fact, these are mostly expensive road monsters that eat up entire landscapes, whose only supporters – apart from the commercial highways and the other advocates of Stone Age mobility concepts – are only a few thousand regional motorists who insist on cementing their privileges. A recent survey showed that nationwide, the majority do not want new motorways.
“Stay back, please!” is not just a hard-pressed advertising claim, but above all it is what employees at Autobahn GmbH shout out in shame every day. They can’t do their job any other way.