Getting around
Child-friendly and green
Heidelberg is a city of cyclists. In Heidelberg 260 kilometers of bike paths make you get to places quickly by bicycle. For 50 percent of the city’s inhabitants the bicycle is their favorite mean of transportation. The city was again designated a "cyclist-friendly local authority" in 2018. Bike counters have been installed all around the city and gather important data that can be used by transportation planners. Furthermore Heidelberg is being used as a model under the Baden-Wuerttemberg Transport and Infrastructure Ministry's RadKULTUR initiative, which aims to encourage greater use of bicycles.
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Getting around
Heidelberg is a city of walkers. Distances are short in the city center, and most journeys can be made on foot. To make it easier for parents to leave their car at home and walk with their children, a "Guideline for Child-friendly Transport Planning" was drawn up by the Children and Youth Office in 2006 and has been used ever since as a check-list for all transport planning decisions made by the city authorities. The overriding aim is to ensure that urban and transport planning decisions are family-friendly.
Heidelberg is a city of buses and streetcars. Almost a third of all people in Heidelberg prefer to use public transport to get around the city. In May 2011, the city council approved plans for a Heidelberg Mobility Network – an ambitious project to expand the streetcar network, investing more than 130 million euros in building or upgrading around six miles of track in the city by 2019.
Heidelberg is a city for drivers. Nobody likes being held up by red lights when driving through a city. That is why a special working group has been set up in Heidelberg to look at the scope for introducing a "green wave" system – the city even has its very own "Traffic Light Trouble-shooter"! A dynamic parking guidance system also helps drivers entering the city find an available parking place.
