Lower Austria survey makes clear

second home the 2.

This far and no further: one of the many topics in a survey of blue and yellow municipal citizens concerns transport infrastructure.

(Bild: APA/Roland Schlager)

What's on the minds of "real" Lower Austrians: the survey by the Lower Austrian Association of Municipalities reveals mostly expected trends when it comes to infrastructure - but there are also surprising outliers in other areas. We took a closer look at the opinions and expectations across the province.

What is on the minds of Lower Austrians? Specifically: all main residents - a comment for good reason: because the top value that emerged from an IFDD survey conducted by the Lower Austrian Association of Municipalities (the "Krone" already reported on this) is 75 percent approval. This was a positive response to the question: "Do you think it is fair that second homeowners pay a contribution towards the costs of using the municipal infrastructure?". More than half "completely agreed", with the "predominantly yes" votes making up three quarters.

Safety and traffic are of great interest
Infrastructure in rural areas is, of course, a hot topic in itself. Although 80% feel comfortable in their community and 77% feel "safe on the streets after 11 p.m.", there are many points on which opinions differ surprisingly widely: While 57% of Lower Austrians would be in favor of better speed enforcement (as a side note: more than a third would welcome it if the fines were also paid into the municipal coffers), only almost a quarter are in favor of a 30 km/h speed limit in the entire local area.

 For residential areas, the figure is just under half again. Incidentally, speed bumps and narrowing are the least popular among Lower Austrians.

The background to some of the surprising results is that both large cities and small towns in regions away from conurbations were surveyed in the study.

Johannes Pressl, Präsident des NÖ Gemeindebundes

"Unfortunately, people are moving away from each other"
The tendency for people to move further and further apart from each other as a community should be viewed with mixed feelings. There was great astonishment, for example, at the statement that exactly half of the compatriots tend to say that they know fewer and fewer people in their community. But when asked whether they would like to have more contact with their neighbors or other citizens, the majority responded with "rather not" to "not at all". "This has always been a trend in larger cities - but in Lower Austria as a whole, we didn't expect this," says Gemeindebund President Johannes Pressl with a regretful expression.