Vienna – Small initiatives, big impacts

7 July 2022

Explore how Vienna's small but clever initiatives — from community parklets to green façades and affordable transit passes — create lasting change for its residents.

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Vienna focuses on small initiatives, such as engaging its residents to co-create community spaces, enabling its building owners to adopt quick greening modules on façades, and encouraging private car owners to make the switch to public transportation, to achieve big impacts. Find out how in this photo essay.

Co-creating communal anchors

Borne from the belief that public spaces should be used in diverse ways that increase the quality of people's stay, the Grätzloase programme is an initiative that provides support for temporary public space activiation in Vienna. The programme is carried out by the NGO 'Local Agenda 21 in Vienna' with funding support from the city of Vienna.

With advice from Local Agenda 21, citizens can shape public spaces such as transforming parking lanes into parklets that serve as community nodes. Complete with greenery, these parklets become communal anchors for street festivals or meals among neighbours. As such, citizens become city makers who can exercise creativity and shape their surroundings.

Despite the modest scale of parklets, the programme's impact is substantial as they are easily replicable and do not require big budgets. Projects are also highly effective engagement levers that contribute to making the city greener, and fostering stronger community bonds.

Adults and children relax on wooden deck chairs in a temporary street parklet labeled Gratzloase in a city.

A children's workshop on the streets © Stadt Wien

A large group of people dining at a long table set outdoors along a narrow city street.

Dining with neighbours in the street © Daniel Dutkowski

People sit on wooden benches under white umbrellas along a narrow European city street with tall buildings.

Parking lanes transformed as a parklet © Stadt Wien

People sitting on yellow outdoor benches near a chess board on a city sidewalk with plants and street signs.

Residents playing chess at a parklet © Christian Fürthner

A man in a hat and woman in a striped shirt sit on yellow wooden outdoor seating, chatting, with children and bikes nearby.

Conversations at a temporal park © Stadt Wien

Children riding bikes and adults gathered on a street at a Grätzloase community outdoor event.

Children having fun at a street festival © Stadt Wien

Greening the city one building at a time

While Vienna already preserves over 50 percent of its land areas as green spaces, it is also increasing greenery at the building level. The '50 Grüne Hauser' project is a green façade system that aims to develop cost-effective, easy-to-apply modules on existing buildings to help regulate building temperatures and mitigate urban heat island effects.

These modules meet the city's requirements in tandem with a complementary tool to simplify the application process that would otherwise involve up to nine official entities. Through a one-stop shop system that facilitates collective approval rather than separate reviews, the application period is reduced from a year to a couple of months, lowering the barriers significantly for building owners.

A building facade covered in ivy with large gray planters, a green door, and a man walking on the sidewalk.

The 50 Grüne Hauser project quickly greens existing buildings with little effort © Stadt Wien

A light green multi-story building with ivy covering its facade, flanked by colorful buildings, with cars parked in front.

Greenery on existing buildings help to regulate temperatures and mitigate urban heat island effect © Gruenstattgrau

A woman and child walk a dog on a sunny urban street lined with ivy-covered white buildings.

Adding greenery could help to enliven existing streets © Gruenstattgrau

Moving people, sustainably

Vienna has continually invested in public transport infrastructure and actively promoted cycling and walking. Today, to get around the city, 28 percent of inhabitants walk, 7 percent cycle, 38 percent use public transport, and 27 percent use motorised transport.

Taking public transport in Vienna today is a largely hassle-free affair, especially for its gantry-less metro system. While the proportion of motorised individual traffic has decreased over time, the city is relentless in its push towards sustainable transportation with a series of measures such as the promotion of electric vehicles and park and ride infrastructure.

A small but highly notable initiative is the introduction of a very affordable annual public transportation ticket at 365 Euros, or 1 Euro per day, to further encourage citizens to give up their cars. It is a success as the number of such passes issued in 2018 amounted to over 822,000, which means that more people own a pass than a car.

Blurred passengers boarding and exiting a subway train at a busy underground station platform.

Red trams travel along a wide boulevard beside a grand white neoclassical building with columns and statues.

Two cyclists ride along a tree-lined urban path beside a modern red and gray tram.

Several cyclists and joggers share a riverside path under a bridge with colorful graffiti murals, with city buildings visible.

Two cyclists ride in a bike lane on a city street beside a red tram, with cars and buildings in the background.