The board struggles with the question: How do we transfer the Amersfoorter to the shared car?

Amersfoort Amersfoort residents want more homes, but also parking spaces. After all, most families own their own car, and some own two. The problem is: There isn’t enough space in the Amersfoort metropolitan area for all of these parking spaces, now that the city’s population has grown to 185,000 in 2040. The solution could be shared transit. Means of transportation that you share with others, such as bicycles, scooters, and especially cars.

Jeroen de Valk

But how do you get people to share cars? Many people are very attached to their car and prefer to park it right in front of the door. AD recently conducted a national survey which showed that many people think a shared car is a good idea, but hardly anyone uses it. Nearly a million people are registered, but eighty percent of them have never used the shared car. It would be quite a hassle: to book a car that you do not own yourself in time.

In order to get Amersfoorters into the shared car, this alternative should be made as attractive as possible, argued Maarten Flikkema (VVD). “We don’t want to penalize car owners, but we’re creating an insanely good show, so people can feel their car as a burden.”

More green This offering is called Mobility as a Service, or MaaS. A number of available transports that can be viewed and booked through a single application. With your phone, you can control which bike you use to go to the train, which train to take you to a station, and then the car you take from the station. Later in the day you make your way home all the way home.

If this system works flawlessly, according to the liberals, Amersfoorters will automatically abandon their car. Most of the council members agreed with this and also emphasized the many advantages: you need fewer parking spaces and therefore you have more space for housing and creating green spaces.

In fact, who knows: The city’s new residential areas may only be possible if we connect it to them. This includes neighborhoods created through “infill”: construction within existing municipal boundaries. Amersfoort wants to leave the surrounding green spaces untouched, except for farmland between Vathorst and Nieuwland, where the Bovenduist will be built.

Along the EEM and the track So there is only room for “increase”. The last really big projects within the city are Langs Eem en Spoor – a chain of seven districts, from Wagenwerkplaats to “Kop van Isselt” – and De Hoef, a former industrial area partially converted into a residential area. Many of the houses to be built here will become apartments. Parking would not be a problem if the houses with balconies with gardens were everywhere, but the city does not have space for this.

And councilman Roald van der Linde seemed to have read it diligently. He answered all questions in a civilized, slightly touched voice, yet the Rotterdam R and L are still recognizable. A few important things to know: A parking permit must be provided in nearby neighborhoods – such as Soesterkwartier – so that there is no inconvenience to parking there. People who really need a car should also have access to it. However, it is no longer intended for residents of the new neighborhoods to demand two parking lots per family.

Plan B in DIGIBETEN VVD and CDA thought of “Plan B” in case MaaS ends in fiasco. CDA Proposed: Establishment of underground parking and spare space at ground level. You make this space “green,” but you convert it into a parking space if the need arises. GroenLinks didn’t think this was a good starting point. How do you motivate citizens to get rid of their cars if there is an alternative plan?

Van der Linde emphasized that the MaaS would become a “framework”, a kind of general guideline. For each project, acting in accordance with the conditions, the form in which the partial transfer will take shape is determined. He had an understanding of digital people who might have a hard time using the MaaS app. There will be “my guidance” for them. Van der Linde was optimistic: “My 93-year-old mother-in-law just bought a new iPhone.”

However, MaaS turns out to be a complex issue. The majority of Council members decided that the Terms and Frameworks still provided sufficient material for the next expedition. Especially since there are already a lot of plans in the Netherlands, but little experience with MaaS.