Gallup's news from Europe
Everyone's waiting … for the bus?
Across Europe initiatives aimed at reducing traffic congestion in cities are becoming increasingly popular. In Belgium for example this year's "Car-free Sunday" attracted a record number of walkers cyclists and rollerbladers into Belgian city centres.
However the results of the Flash Eurobarometer that looked at attitudes towards transport across the EU show that the car-free city is still a dream. Using public transport for going to work taking the kids to school or going to the supermarket seems to put Europeans into a state of NIMBYism. Yes cleaner air would be great but other people can leave their car in the garage.
According to the Flash report: 81% of EU citizens have the use of a car with 94% of Cypriots leading the way followed by Italians and Luxembourgers (both 93%) and the Irish (92%). The least likely to have car keys in their pockets are Romanians (54%) Latvians (48%) and Bulgarians (42%).
Most of these cars are used on a daily basis. Around half of respondents (51%) indicate that the car is their main mode of transport. It is again the Cypriots leading the way with 89% using it as their main daily means of transport followed by the French (71%) and Irish (69%). As for public transport only one in five European uses public transport as their main means of transport (21%) 15% are mostly walking and 9% get on their bike.
Public transport is the problem
However results show that people want change: only 6% of Europeans think that there is no need to improve the traffic situation. There is a feeling that it is the public transport system that stops them from leaving their car at home!
As can be seen above respondents would think that a better schedule and improved connections would be most likely to encourage them to use public transport. However 22% of car users said that they would not change their attitudes regardless of any changes to the public transport system.
Only 26% of respondents have used public transport in order to save fuel and reduce CO2 emissions with more people preferring to either adapt their driving style (57%) or walk or cycle more (56%). The first approach is most favoured by the Germans and the French (75% 73%) while it is the Austrians Dutch and Slovenians (61%-63%) who are the most likely to switch to their own power.
Who is going to pay for cleaner air?
Finally it comes down to money. Just over half 54% of respondents are willing to pay to pollute less (by using energy efficient private and public vehicles cleaner fuels etc.). The Slovenians and Greeks are the most willing to pay with citizens in several East European countries taking an opposing stance. On average 41% of EU citizens are not willing to pay more to pollute less. They are leaving it to their neighbours; they will sort out the problem.
