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The traffic light coalition implements savings in local transport. The left speaks of a “historic wrong decision”.
The city of Offenbach will reduce its range of local public transport. The city council decided on Thursday. “It doesn’t fit the whole house, but we have to do it,” said the FDP chairman Oliver Stirböck. The concept presented is socially acceptable, it continues to enable a lot of public transport and “it gives us the opportunity to keep the property tax stable. The Liberal spoke of an emergency brake in view of the looming double-digit million deficit for the 2022 budget.
In the June meeting, the Ampel coalition decided with its majority to save 4.8 million euros in the 2022 local transport plan. “I am convinced that, in the rush and under the general conditions, we presented the best concept that was possible,” said Sabine Groß, Head of the Transport Department (Greens). She is curious about the complaints from the population. “Then I’ll just send the motion back from the city parliament,” she said, meaningfully, expressing her reluctance.
According to the concept, 83,000 kilometers of the current offer, that is around two percent, will be saved by reducing the frequency. In addition, the reduction in services with a subcontractor for the planned connection to the new Bürgel Ost development area means that around 500,000 kilometers (previously only planned) are eliminated. In addition, three million euros were included in the planning as corona compensation by the federal and state governments.
“The three million euros are not valid in this amount. There is only one general decree for 2021 on the city council, ”said Marc-Oliver Junker. In the speech of the CDU politician it became clear how different the positions in the previous coalition between the Union, Greens, FDP and Free Voters were on the subject of public transport. “As the CDU, we clearly communicated to the head of the department that something had to change strategically in the long term at Offenbach’s transport company.” Groß has held this office since Thursday after Peter Freier (CDU) was voted out of office.
“We Greens did not think of the fact that savings should be made on local public transport,” said the parliamentary group leader Sybille Schumann openly. She was glad that the concept presented had the right sense of proportion. She invited all city councilors to take part in the process of the new local transport plan from 2022. A total of 20 million euros in local public transport will be saved by 2025. How this will work is still completely uncertain.
“It was a historic wrong decision of the last city council to demand this savings concept,” said left-wing politician Markus Philippi. “That will damage Offenbach for many decades.” There are services of general interest that cannot simply be turned off. “The double-digit million holes will not go away if we turn a blind eye to them,” said Helena Wolf, who was elected the new parliamentary group leader of the SPD on Friday night. Unlike the previous coalition, which plugged financial holes in local public transport with a property tax increase, this coalition will try to prevent this.
Groß believes that the fact that property tax had to be increased due to the expansion of local public transport is a shortened view. She was also able to announce that the feared non-renewal of contracts with five bus drivers will probably not take place because there have been further terminations.
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