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

https://twitter.com/BueRubner/status/1440611252183601156?s=20

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
/7

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

https://twitter.com/SystemChangeAT/status/1465976635719622656

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