Before 2020, the solution was usually to create more parking spaces, keep parking cheap or free of charge and turn a blind eye to illegal parking. Unsurprisingly, this incentive only increased the parking pressure. Since Volt entered the city council at the end of 2020 and joined an alliance with the Greens and the SPD at the beginning of 2021, our local politicians have campaigned, both within and outside the alliance, for a fairer distribution of space.
A first small step is the FairParken pilot project, which has now made around 420 m² of space previously blocked by cars available again for its original purpose. We understand the frustration of many residents that the tiresome search for a parking space is now becoming even more difficult, but we see no legal alternative here either. Münster already wastes a great deal of space on cars, and everyone else suffers as a result. Not only do we need less open space for cars, but illegal parking must finally be tackled consistently.
Martin Grewer, Volt's spokesperson for transport policy, explains:
FairParken is already the compromise. Particularly in central, well-connected neighbourhoods such as the Kreuzviertel, it must in future be people, cafés, flowers and children at play that shape the streetscape, no longer cars.
You can find out more in Martin's letter to the editor of the WN on the article “Ärger über steigenden Parkdruck an der Melchersstraße” (“Anger over rising parking pressure on Melchersstraße”) of 15 September 2022:
