Municipal elections 2025

Green minister pedals for votes during visit

Together with Clemens Rauch, Leonore Gewessler navigated through Feldkirch's Mutterstraße.(Bild: sos)

With Climate Minister Leonore Gewessler, the Feldkirch Greens around top candidate Clemens Rauch had gained prominent support for the election campaign. Top candidate Rauch called for more cycle lanes.  

Mutterstraße in Feldkirch would make an excellent cycle lane, says Clemens Rauch, top candidate for the Feldkirch Greens - and tested the conditions on site with Minister Leonore Gewessler.

Rauch's goal is to increase the proportion of bike users in the Montfort city to 30 percent by 2030. From his point of view, it is positive that the figure is already 23 percent. He attributes this high figure to the "tailwind" provided by the efforts of the Green Party at federal and state level to expand the infrastructure.

Mutterstrasse would be ideally suited as a cycle route, said the Green tandem duo.(Bild: sos)

On the other hand, it was less positive that a cycle lane concept drafted in 2019 had more or less disappeared into a drawer: only four of the eleven planned projects were implemented. A particular thorn in his side is the connection to Feldkirch railroad station: "Cyclists don't have a good way to cross the L190. They have to push their bikes over the protective path or merge into the traffic, which is not always entirely safe," he says.

"Nobody should have to be afraid when they get on their bike," added the minister. She had special praise for the former State Councillor for Mobility, Daniel Zadra, who had ensured that various subsidies for the expansion of cycling were collected and used sensibly.

More goods on rail
Even at the end of her term of office, she is convinced that road construction solutions in the lower Rhine Valley are the wrong solution. "Problems of the 21st century cannot be solved with measures from the 19th century. We not only need to expand the cycling infrastructure and rely more on public transport, but also get more goods onto the railways," she said, referring to the traffic jams around the Wolfurt freight station.

As far as the S16 variant, which has been under discussion for decades, is concerned, the people of Lustenau and their decision against the remaining variant should be taken seriously. "However, there must be urgent relief for the population, which is why Asfinag is also working on alternatives to the road, which has already failed once."