Thread by @BueRubner

Massive victory for the Austrian climate movement:
The 1,3bn euro Lobau highway project has been cancelled!

1/

derstandard.at/story/20001315…

The cancellation comes of the highway comes after 3 months of blocades at 3 construction sites, by a coalition of Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, System Change not Climate Change, the FFF-related Youth council and many independent activists. /2

The cancelled highway ring around Vienna was a part of a major EU project to expand the Transeuropa-Magistrale Danzig — Trieste connection between Poland and the Adriatic. /3

Ironically, the blockades go on: While construction on the highway ring had not started, what is being blockaded is the construction of a highway-sized connection road to the now cancelled highway: the Stadtstraße. /4

With the cancellation of the Lobau-ring, the pressure is on the social democratic city government of Vienna, which is committed to the four-lane connection road, no matter what happens to the highway. The aim: To connect the newly constructed “Seestadt” with urban traffic. /5

Getting the city to drop the the "Stadtstraße" will not just lower traffic – it will force it to develop more public transportation to newly built areas and stop developing the city periphery where this is not feasible. That would be major move towards a greener city. /6

Major respect to the #LobauBleibt activists. After three months in sun, rain, and snow they have thrown a spanner in the carbon machinery of the Austrian State and the EU.

The fight continues.
@lobaubleibt @ViennaForFuture @SystemChangeAT @XRebellionAT
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@lobaubleibt @ViennaForFuture @SystemChangeAT @XRebellionAT A message from System Change: Party at 1800 tonight outside Vienna City Hall. Cheeky and appropriate

Also let me just say how wrong it is that activists have to spend months fighting the construction of NEW carbon intensive projects, when we should be decarbonizing. @Stadt_Wien