Mobility Alderperson Monique Esselbrugge has come up with a mobility plan that looks forward to 2050. “We have to make room for growth,” she said.
“We have so many mobility plans in the city, but there was a lack of an overarching vision,” Monique Esselbrugge said concerning the need for the Mobility Master Plan. “In this plan, we want to state our long-term vision and how we want to achieve it.”
“The biggest challenge for Eindhoven is creating space,” Esselbrugge says. “We are going to experience tremendous growth in terms of population. Parked cars take up a huge amount of space. Therefore, we people visiting the city no longer come by car. Therefore, we want to open a P&R on the outskirts of the city. Mobility and connection are human rights.”
Parking
“Paid parking is everywhere inside the ring road,” Esselbrugge says. “As compared with other cities, we are underpriced. So we want to do something about that. The P&R has to become the alternative, so people can park their car there and get to the city without hassle.”
The Alderwoman thinks of rethinking the usage of the city’s parking garages in the future. “Those are currently still under management by Q-Park. The contracts expire in 2034. We will look at whether those garages can be used for parking options for residents. For now, the parking garages will remain accessible, but it will soon no longer be possible to drive straight through the city. The cars just take up too much space, even if they are electric.”
Maximum speed
To keep the car out, Eindhoven sees an important function for the P&Rs on the outskirts of the city. And Esselbrugge would like to have two more of those. “The plan is to use the current two P&Rs more. Moreover, a speed limit of 30 kilometers per hour is becoming the norm in the city. On the ring road, we want to improve safety and traffic flow, so we are going to investigate whether we can reduce the speed there to 50 kilometers per hour. We are going to make at least three intersections on the ring road flyover but there may be more.”
The restriction on cars is thought upon. But according to the alderman, there is no campaigning against the car. “We need all modes of transportation, we have nothing against the car, but not all modes of transportation are needed in every place, that’s the point.”
Staff shortage
One possible sticking point, though, is the current staffing problems that have caused bus operator Hermes to scale back schedules. “Yes that is a concern,” Esselbrugge says. “The labor market is tight everywhere. So there are talks with the province and Hermes.”
“Hermes has promised that Line 12 will be scaled up again first when there are more staff. The province is also aware of it. We have said that every district of the city should be easily accessible.”
Walking and cycling
“Besides the bus, the train is also important. We are also going to investigate train stations in Tongelre and Eindhoven North-West near Acht. We want to utilise the whole network in the mobility transition. We can focus our direction on public transportation, but we also just need to walk and bike more, we want to focus on that as well,” Esselbrugge said.
The plan still has to go to the City Council for approval. That will probably happen in early 2024.
Source Studio040
Translation by Chaitali Sengupta
