Driving the Wheels of Change

Five years ago, on 1 July 2016, Agora Verkehrswende made its first public appearance. We would like to use this moment to take a slightly broader look at our topic, the sustainable transformation of the transport sector or Verkehrswende, as we say in German. Fritz Vorholz, a former colleague of ours and long-time ZEIT journalist, has looked back for us and written a short history of the Verkehrswende over the past five years with "Driving the Wheels of Change". The text traces the discussions and developments in the most important topic areas, with all their ambitions and shortcomings - from the Paris Climate Agreement and the diesel affair to the trend towards electromobility, the redistribution of public space and the evergreen of transport policy, the shift of traffic to rail and public transport. His conclusion: "The transport transformation is ready to take off. The next five years will show whether it will fly."