CITY VIEW: Freiburg, Germany

Abstract

Sustainable development has a long tradition in Freiburg, a university city in southwest Germany’s Black Forest region. In the 1970s, a strong anti-nuclear movement emerged to protest a planned nuclear power plant in the nearby municipality of Wyhl. The following decade, the Freiburg city council made a landmark decision to divert car traffic from the city center and instead offer public transportation alternatives—a move that ran counter to the mainstream. Today, Freiburg has an extensive transit network, with a tram or bus stop no more than about 300 meters from any residence. The introduction of an environment-oriented public-transit ticket (Umweltkarte) in 1982 was the first step toward the development of a regional intermodal ticket (Regiokarte).