Representatives of ADFC and climate protection alliances as well as city councilors from Geretsried and Wolfratshausen recently accepted the invitation of the SPD local association to discuss modern mobility concepts.
Geretsried – “We only think about continuing the existing structure and not thinking enough about a turnaround in traffic,” said Bernhard Lorenz. The SPD member sees a need for improvement, especially in school route safety.
Parent taxis for Geretsried schools cause dangerous road narrowing
Accordingly, parent taxis and parked cars also lead to dangerous road narrowing in front of Geretsried educational institutions. Lorenz referred to an online survey conducted in the city last fall. 68 percent of citizens stated that they regularly use their car in inner-city traffic. The amount of space consumed by individual parking spaces, which are often the size of a child's room, is simply too high.
The large number of narrow bunker streets in the city area further exacerbates the situation. In order to create more space for cyclists, at least on the major traffic axes such as Adalbert-Stifterstrasse or Sudetenstrasse, ADFC district association board member Nikolaus Wiedemann suggested the designation of so-called environmental lanes. “Only cyclists and buses are allowed to ride on it,” he suggested.
For Willi Sommerwerk, a resident of Böhmerwaldstrasse, that's not enough. He also called for footpaths to be made available to cycling schoolchildren. Wiedemann and the former mayor of Wolfratshausen, Reiner Berchtold, consider this to be excessive, especially since pedestrians also need to be protected. “The best concept is always to separate the traffic routes,” says Berchtold. Since he has already recorded many traffic accidents involving cyclists and drivers in his job as a police officer, he defended himself against one-sided blame.
The bureaucracy of the authorities prevents the implementation of so-called environmental strips
Wolfratshausen city councilor Hans Schmidt (Greens) and Jan Reiners from the climate protection alliance “WOR for Future” admitted that the implementation of environmental strips and other improvements for cycling was still being delayed too much due to lengthy bureaucracy in the authorities.
The Geretsried SPD city councilor Arthur Wolfseher took a stand for the city administration and its new “forward-looking mobility concept”. The headwind often comes from citizens who object to 30 km/h zones and cycle lanes.
S-Bahn extension to Geretsried reduces car traffic
Almost all participants in the city discussion viewed the objection from Wolfratshauser Heinz Wensauer, who denounced the planned S-Bahn extension because of the sealing of agricultural land, as a miss in the topic. “I’m for the railway because it reduces car traffic,” replied Wiedemann.
Lorenz noted that there is still a lot to do on the way to becoming a bike-friendly community. “We can't carry on as before: there are ways to assert our interests against the motorists' lobby,” he said combatively.
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