A serious accident at the exit of the Neidhart shopping park fueled the discussion about the safety of cyclists on Münchener Strasse.
The danger points there urgently need to be defused before anything worse happens, the city council said.
Weilheim -
The reason for the discussion was only a few days ago - and it was violent: A 60-year-old cyclist was seriously injured on July 22nd when he drove on the “bike path” on Münchener Straße over the exit of Neidhart Park . A motorist coming from there disregarded the cyclist's right of way and a collision occurred. The 60-year-old had to be flown to the Murnau Accident Clinic with back injuries by rescue helicopter (we reported).
Claus Reindl, who had been a traffic officer for many years until 2020 and was often out and about by bike in Weilheim, now sounded the alarm in the city council: on behalf of the BfW parliamentary group, he urged the urgency to reduce "the great potential for cyclists" at this exit.
There “there are many dangerous situations every day that can only result in positive reactions from cyclists and motorists”.
There are also frequent minor collisions, they are just “not on record, as they usually result in no damage”.
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According to his experience, the problem at the intersection is that motorists who exit the parking lot to the right into Münchener Strasse “disregard the stop sign and only look to the left at the vehicles driving into town when exiting briskly”.
Since the car traffic from the right has no reason to turn in, many would not look to the right at all - but from there come cyclists who are on the "footpath and bike path" (according to traffic law it is a sidewalk on which cycling is free) are out of town.
"I can also report from my own experience," says Reindl: As a cyclist, he was "very often handicapped and has even been hit and taken off the bike".
The engineering office should now examine which short-term measures at the entrance to Neidhart-Park make sense
The serious accident of July 22nd shows "that it is now time to defuse these danger spots before even worse accidents there may even be fatal". In the short term, according to the BfW application, measures such as a stop sign on the exit lane or a lane threshold “that forces the vehicle to slowly approach the intersection” are needed. In addition, “the expansion plans for cycling on the east side of Münchener Straße, which have long been in the drawer, should now be implemented so that cycling out of town no longer has to take place via the dangerous exits of Neidhart Park”.
Which short-term measures make sense - according to the city council decision last week - is now to be examined by the engineering office Gevas, which is currently developing a bicycle traffic concept for Weilheim and will present it in autumn. In terms of the cycle path on the east side of Münchener Straße, however, progress is slow. After all, for the small section from the Töllern roundabout to the Aldi exit, which had been decided on for years, city architect Andrea Roppel-Sommer was able to report progress: the work for this would be put out to tender in autumn, and the trees would be felled from November (around eight pieces have to be removed, But there are replacement plantings), construction could then start in 2022 - provided the city council shows the necessary money in the budget. According to a fundamental decision, the city is actually planning 350,000 euros per year for the new system,the maintenance and repairs of cycle paths. This year this item was reduced to 100,000 euros because of the corona losses.
The possible continuation of a cycle path or protective strip from the Aldi exit out of town does not only depend on the money.
A city council resolution is still required for this, then the town hall would have to try to acquire the necessary land.
And that would be "difficult" in this area, as the city council has often said.
Current information about the Corona situation in the district can be found here.