Swiss Review 6/2020

Swiss Review / November 2020 / No.6 15 Society STÉPHANE HERZOG Every yearmore people in Switzerland are giving up their private vehicle. In some parts of Berne, the flagship city for public transport, households without a car nowmake up the majority. Take, for example, Mattenhof-Weissen- bühl, where non-car ownership is almost 70%. In 2015, on average 56.8% percent of homes in Bern did not have a pri- vate car, “but this figure is probably now over 57%,” states city councillor UrsulaWyss, approvingly. She is in charge of Civil Engineering, Transport and Green Spaces in the city of Berne. This change is also evident in Basel (52.1%) and Zurich (52.8%). Geneva, a city currently tackling serious conges- tion problems, is at the bottomof the group (41%). But even the historical home of the Geneva motor show “is follow- ing the same trend, just 20 years later”, comments Vincent Kaufmann, professor in urban sociology at EPFL. Indeed, Geneva has recorded an increase of car-free households ofmore than ten percentage points in ten years. Lausanne, a city which, like Geneva, has been very car-centric since the 1960s, is now following the same trend. An icon of the “Glorious thirties”, the car is becoming less popular throughout Europe. “Fifteen years ago, young people associated carswith freedom. Drivingwas empowering. Today, their means of escape are the inter- net or social media, which, for them, represent a more tangible world,” says Vincent Kaufmann, who directs the Mobile Lives Forum, a foundation supported by the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF). The balance is tipping towards a different type of mobil- ity, considers Sébastien Munafò, head of the Geneva- based mobility research firm, 6t. On the one hand, car-related costs and the price of cars themselves have increased. On the other, alter- natives to the car have evolved. Citizens nowhave ac- cess to car sharing (see page 17) and chauffeur-driven cars. They are increasingly opting to use public trans- port services, electric bikes and even motorised two-wheelers, of which the largest number is found in Geneva. “This means that more and more city dwellers, and also commuters, are choosing this cheap and practical means of transport over owning Doing without a car is becoming the new normal In Switzerland’s large cities, private vehicles face strong competition from alternative means of transport. Leading the way is Berne, which now allows carpark-free buildings. Geneva has yet to emulate that, but attitudes are certainly changing. A different style of protest in Geneva, where residents made their own boules pitch to slow the traffic. In Geneva, the percentage of households with cars is higher than in any other major Swiss city. Photo: Keystone