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ofAnnette Schlegl
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shut down
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The majority of city councilors are in favor of introducing the Hopper Ruf bus in the city. Free voters and the FDP are bothered by the costs.
In Rödermark, the hopper of the Offenbach roundabout company (KVG) could be on the road in the summer of next year. The majority of the city council saw the small Ruf bus in the meeting on Tuesday evening as an opportunity for the fine development of the five Rödermarker districts. However, the financing of the offer sparked discussions.
The bus taxi on demand, without a fixed timetable and destination, has been on the way from Hainburg, Mainhausen and Seligenstadt to Hanau since 2019. If you want to ride with you, you can book the hopper using the app, make your way with others and get off again right at the front door. The KVG is planning to expand the area of application and is currently inquiring about the general willingness of the municipalities to introduce it.
In 2012, the KVG had two city bus routes run for the first time in trial operation, which lasted a good three years. “But the city bus was too rigid,” said Mayor Jörg Rotter (CDU). Therefore it was not accepted by the citizens and stopped in 2016. Since then, the five districts have been “connected with each other in a suboptimal way”. The hopper is a useful addition to line 95 from the Urberach district to Dietzenbach, said Thomas Rosenblatt (CDU). He could close gaps in passenger transport.
FDP and Free Voters are bothered by the costs. Until the end of 2022, the city will have to pay almost 170,000 euros every six months, and then 85,000 euros every six months in 2023. From 2024, the KVG will bear the full deficit. The federal government is funding the hopper with a total of 3.6 million euros until the end of 2024; that’s around 40 percent of the cost. Tobias Kruger (FDP) complained that the city had to provide “many hundreds of thousands of euros” by the end of 2023. Then you finance the hopper indirectly through the district levy.
Other cities have invested much more and much more clearly in public transport in recent years, said the mayor. “In the Offenbach district we are at the bottom of the list when it comes to spending on public transport,” he explained.
Rüdiger Werner (FDP) saw the hopper as competition for the local taxis. Rödermark currently invests 50,000 euros per year in local public transport, while other district municipalities invest 500,000 to 800,000 euros per year. The city bus, which was not accepted, cost 150,000 euros as a project. If the federal government did not support the Hopper, the city would have to pay up to 800,000 euros per year. That is a huge additional item.
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