Now it is also known in the Spanish media that Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace, has been undergoing an urban revolution for years, led by its City Council and supported by the regional authorities.
Strasbourg is located next to the Rhine, across two bridges, one for pedestrians and the other for vehicular traffic, one passes to Germany, to the city of Kehl. In its station there is a sign that remembers how Sigmund Freud arrived there from Vienna fleeing from the Nazi persecution.
Strasbourg has the supreme charm of the border cities that are wonderful for their ambiguity, because they propitiate the meeting of peoples and the mingling of wines.
But if I bring it to this blog, it is because in Strasbourg a different model of urban coexistence is being tested, one that focuses on the good use of time and the good use of leisure.
A change of mentality is being sought in the citizens. For many years now, the streetcar network – which makes no noise and is astonishingly punctual – has been covering every corner of the city. When I was an MEP, I was entitled – for some official journeys – to use a Parliament car. I rarely did so because I liked to take advantage of the streetcar service.
The current pilot scheme aims to make all services accessible to citizens on foot or by public transport. Information on the time required to walk to each stop along the route has been installed at the streetcar stops. There is a special budget to invest in streetcar lines and high-speed buses.
In addition, ten thousand daily bicycle trips have already been recorded. There are curious initiatives such as extending the green time at traffic lights for pedestrians and cyclists, increasing the number of benches for resting or bringing certain public services, always located in the city centers, to the city’s neighborhoods.
All this is called “time use policies”. It also includes a provisional program to extend teleworking for employees of public bodies, another to reduce work meetings to a minimum and hold them telematically to avoid travel and other forms of time wasting that we are all familiar with.
Is this possible in Spain? I know that similar initiatives are being carried out in some Catalan municipalities, for example Lérida, although I have no data about their extent.
I do not think that these ideas can be easily exported and incorporated into the daily routine of any city. Each one is a different world and its subjection to certain circumstances is impossible to avoid.
But the knowledge that “another way of making a city” is possible is always instructive, and in any case it serves to awaken the imagination of municipal authorities who should be pioneers when it comes to teaching us citizens to banish routine habits.
For the time being, we are left thinking of Strasbourg and remembering that Gutenberg lived there, where an important book printing industry flourished at the end of the 15th century.