Too much road salt

Environmental organization criticizes Green department

Eva Schobesberger, the city councillor responsible for winter road maintenance, presented better figures in April 2024 - Greenpeace is said to have mixed up the kilometer values.

(Bild: Patrick Huber)

Greenpeace has criticized the department of Green Climate Councillor Eva Schobesberger of all people for using too much road salt on the streets of Linz - probably unfairly. The city counters: the poor figures are based on a simple calculation error - the true salt mountains are likely to be far smaller.

Linz is at the center of a new Greenpeace analysis that takes a close look at the use of road salt in Austria's provincial capitals - with sobering results. Our city is one of the negative examples in terms of winter road maintenance and was given the worst category "red" by the environmental protection organization. The reason: compared to other cities, Linz spreads particularly high quantities - 2.8 tons per kilometer of road - of road salt. Only Innsbruck and St. Pölten scored worse.

Linz was the only city not to respond
The city had already acted clumsily in advance, as the environmental organization was the only city not to receive an answer to its inquiry about road salt consumption from Linz. "Of course, something like this shouldn't happen, but unfortunately we didn't respond to the request," says City Council Director Eva Blees. However, she also sees this as the reason for the "strange" figures.

Incorrect figures used for analysis
Greenpeace used the data published on the city's website for its analysis. And, according to Blees, probably mixed up road kilometers with lane kilometers in the analysis. To explain: 10 lane kilometers are 20 road kilometers with two lanes. "In other cities, such as Graz, the road kilometers were used, but for Linz the lane kilometers were used."