How surreal does the following story sound? A government pays people to drive a car. It finances part of the purchase of an electric car for the happy few. Public transport, on the other hand, has had to make savings for years, not only in its operation (and therefore supply), but also in investments that must secure its future. As a result, the average age of the bus fleet has risen to more than ten years, while seven years is the maximum internationally. A third of the buses are older than fifteen years. Because they are too polluting, the government collects fines from the bus company that has not allowed it to purchase new, environmentally friendly buses in a timely manner. But the same government does exempt vintage cars from those fines. Moreover, except for a flat-rate road tax, it does not charge motorists for the use of the traffic infrastructure. Train passengers do, because their ticket also includes an infrastructure charge. Anyone who wants to train to the airport in an environmentally friendly way must pay a diabolo tax on top of that, while aviation itself is exempt from excise duties on kerosene.
Parking on the market square
Do you think that’s too crazy to run wild? However, you have just read a summary of the federal and Flemish mobility policy of the past decade. Just a little quiz: do you find it obvious in 2024 that labor is reimbursed in euros? If you unexpectedly answered no, would you like to be paid in pumpkins for your work? Maybe not, but replace pumpkins with cars and we’ll drop all reservations. VUB researcher Eva Van Eenoo submitted last month Sampol clearly explains what is wrong, both socially and ecologically, with the principle of salary vans. 23 percent of employees in our country have one. They mainly live in the Flemish Diamond between Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp and Leuven. It is no coincidence that Antwerp and Brussels are the traffic jam kings in our country, connected by two highways. Nevertheless, the NMBS wants to further reduce the already poor train offering on that axis. This means that the modal shift, which all governments in this country are talking about, remains an illusion.
But the Flemish mobility policy in particular has taken the cake in recent years, because what we mess up ourselves, we mess up better. Although we have known since the last century that our spatial planning is a mess that makes good public transport difficult, Flanders and the municipalities continue to delay in taking decisive measures. For a moment we thought that they were serious about core densification and infill: better integrating housing into the existing cores and not allowing the infamous ribbon development to expand further. But that was not included in the basic accessibility, because it wants the bus to hurry and therefore stay on the major (diversion) roads. Too bad: the bus no longer comes to the market square, but you can still park your car on or under it.
Salary car and flex bus
What then about the modal shift? In the countryside there is no need to have many illusions about this anymore, because sometimes there are no buses anymore. In the best case there is the flex bus, although Van Eenoo rightly points out an important social gap: “A company car as a supplement to the salary for one person, while the other has to make do with a complicated reservation system for a flex bus to replace a canceled one.” stop.”
Yes, but public transport costs a lot of money, you hear as a counter argument. Is that right? With a smart kilometer tax, everyone would realize that individual transport per head is much more expensive. We must develop public transport, because this is the only way to combat transport poverty and prevent our country from becoming completely gridlocked. That may cost a bit, if you also do the environment a favor. Many sectors have reduced their emissions since 1990, but road transport has increased. Money can’t be a problem. The salary vans cost our country according to it Belgian Mobility Dashboard 4 billion euros annually, traffic jams 5 billion, together 2 percent of GDP.
We must fundamentally rethink our mobility. Our country lacks an integrated and sustainable mobility vision at all levels. Is that an urgent theme in the coming elections? It certainly should.
