Vienna wants to be climate-fit by 2040. This means that the city’s streets will be redesigned so that they can be used equally by all road users. Because in the future, the street should belong to everyone again, not just to car owners. Namely, to pedestrians in the city centre, and to children and young people in the newly created play streets (of which there were already some, however, they were only allowed to be used by cars driving at walking speed, with the effect that no one kept to the walking speed). Now the play streets are to be car-free. Cyclists, pedestrians and e-scooters that cannot travel faster than 25 km/h will be allowed to use this space. The large shopping streets will be narrowed considerably. There will then be space for everyone. This requires a longer phase of rethinking and getting used to for older Viennese, however, as well as for migrants from the Far East.

The credo of the conservatives in the federal government and the old guard in Vienna was that Vienna, like Austria, should be an absolute car country by 2020. Everything was subordinated to this. Now, during the pandemic (2020 to 2022), the environmental awareness of the Viennese has changed dramatically.

Today’s youth in urban areas are increasingly using public transport and alternative means of transport, such as e-scooters, e-bikes and e-cars. The City of Vienna has now taken this trend into account and created a number of sub-departments to address citizens in the low-threshold area and implement their ideas as quickly as possible, provided they are feasible.

In the fifteenth district, the new district leader Ing. Ditmar Baurecht made it possible to form agenda groups in 2023 and 2024. Now, this kind of citizen participation was already in place in other districts, as we heard. We were one of the stragglers. And the ‘Lebenswertes 1150-WEST’ agenda for the 15th district was only set up in spring 2023 and recognised by the district in autumn of the same year.

Now, from 2025, the city has decided to go one step further after evaluating all the Viennese people involved. Why is that? Well, there are neighbourhood residents who, as individuals, have good ideas and sporadically wanted to implement something, but then decided against it due to the rather complex implementation possibilities. From 2025, these Viennese residents will be approached in a low-threshold manner. The agenda groups will remain in place, insofar as larger district projects are assigned to them.

On 20 March 2025, the first of four meetings in 2025 took place with the newly established Grätzllabor team.

The Local Agenda 21 Vienna was and is the administrative level commissioned by the federal capital Vienna to work with the Grätzllabor in the respective districts. In the respective districts, there are still citizens’ groups from the past, e.g. in the 15th district there are 4 groups that are in close contact with the Grätzllabor team.

The two PDFs show what is planned. From 2025, anyone who wants to can also get involved as an individual and participate as a “neighbourhood maker”.

Everything else can be found on the “German-language page”. Because all the activities take place in Vienna for Vienna. English will continue to be available if housemates are interested and let us know.