It has taken four years, but now the time has come: the Klimaboulevard Thaliastrasse is finally finished. Vienna is living up to its name as a green city of the future. After numerous green spaces have been created and existing ones expanded in recent years, the capital is continuing to prepare for hot summer days. A stroll through Vienna is now even more fun!
What does the Thaliastrasse climate boulevard offer?
The new street is a model project for climate-friendly urban development in Vienna-Ottakring. After a lengthy four-year redesign, the 2.8-kilometer-long shopping street now has a completely new look. Around 240 new trees were planted and 20,000m² of surface area was unsealed.
The Klimaboulevard Thaliastrasse is intended to be a pleasant area to live in, providing coolness in the increasingly hot summers and thus also protecting the environment. The many green spaces contribute to this, as do 41 fog steles, several water features and 26 drinking fountains .
In the shade and refreshed by the water, you can really relax here in future. 360 new seats will give you plenty of choice. The footpaths have also been widened to up to six meters and are now barrier-free. Cars are now only allowed to drive through the street at 30 km/h.
Out of the asphalt, into the green
The redesign of Thaliastrasse had a clear goal: to improve the local microclimate. In recent years, summer temperatures in Vienna have risen continuously. Particularly in densely built-up districts such as Ottakring, so-called heat islands have frequently occurred, where summer temperatures were sometimes several degrees higher than in the surrounding area.
Initial evaluations and field reports show that surface temperatures can be reduced locally by several degrees on particularly hot days. This means that where asphalt surfaces used to get hotter than 50 °C, trees, shady areas and water now ensure noticeably more pleasant temperatures and a significantly better urban climate.
Thaliastrasse is one of a total of 344 “Raus aus dem Asphalt” projects that have been implemented in all districts of Vienna in recent years. This is backed by the 100 million funding pot of the “Liveable Climate Model City” initiative. The aim is to improve Vienna’s quality of life even further – and make it ready for a hotter future.