Schongau / Herzogsägmühle / Birkland - A continuous cycle path from Schongau to Birkland is within reach and could be implemented as early as 2022.
Mayor Peter Ostenrieder announced this at the last municipal council meeting.
At the end of October the situation was different: First, the dangerous section between Birkland - starting at the fire station - over the hill to the sawmill (at the junction to Forst) and on to the forest should be tackled.
Only a month later the town hall chief came up with this message: “We have now been able to massively accelerate the whole thing”.
The bike path project is supposed to be much more extensive.
Specifically, this concerns the expansion in the forest and on the slope above the Herzogsägmühle hostel.
The Peiting market wants to go one step further together with the State Building Authority in Weilheim and the Free State. With the help of the special program "City and Country" for area-wide bicycle infrastructure from the Federal Ministry of Transport, the dangerous mountain in Herzogsägmühle, on which the state road 2014 (St. 2014) runs, is now supposed to be safer with a new, parallel, 2.5-meter-wide cycle path be made.
The route goes from the hostel to the left of the road through the forest to the curve at the top of the mountain. For this purpose, land negotiations are currently underway with the owners; these are the State Forests and Herzogsägmühle. The readiness for this positive project has already been signaled, added Ostenrieder. In addition, they want to try to implement a small, safe feeder bike path to the entrance to Herzogsägmühle at the "Roter Berg" level. The cycle path on the Herzogsägmühler Berg, which connects to the narrow connection to Schongau, is, so to speak, construction phase one. Construction phase 2 is the existing, well-developed forest path, through which you can get to Birkland very quickly and come back to St 2014 about 100 meters before the end of the forest.
From this confluence, the construction of the cycle path into the village takes place (construction phase three). "This part has already been secured with the owners in the past few weeks, so that nothing will stand in the way," Ostrieder reports on the current status of the property assignment. In addition to section one, section four is now also new. This means a completely new cycle path that is to run alongside the St 2014 through the entire village of Birkland - with a width of around 2.50 meters. That will not be possible at every point, but in town you can sometimes live with bottlenecks, the mayor cites the Weilheim building authority. A curb and a new asphalting will create a completely new quality path for the site.
So far, only a narrow asphalt strip runs parallel to the road. Since the St. 2014 in the through-town Birkland itself is not very wide and evasive maneuvers will often be necessary due to the volume of agricultural traffic, one will take a close look at whether there is a curb solution that on the one hand ensures safety and on the other hand, if the worst comes to the worst, sometimes "Tire compatible" for buses, trucks or agricultural vehicles can be driven on. However, one should not forget that especially when driving through town there is a drop in driveways every 20 to 30 meters.
Overall, this cycle path should then extend to the junction to Aichen below the Birkland parish church. We then continue over the dam on the Lech to Kinsau, where there is a connection to the cycle path towards Landsberg. If the project works, you can cycle from Schongau to Birkland and on to Wessobrunn or Kinsau without having to be on the road. This connection is bike path network for everyday life and for leisure; it means a "great upgrade".
According to Ostenrieder, many municipalities have applied for the “City and Country” program. But most of them have problems with the acquisition of land, which is why the funding pot is still well filled. The mayor, who himself lives in Birkland, has already contacted the largest affected owners and has met open ears. He assumes that construction could start as early as spring 2022. The cost to the state is between 1.8 and two million euros. The municipality pays for the necessary agricultural land.
The bike path is paved.
Only the existing forest path from the curve at the top of the mountain down to the end of the forest will remain as a forest path.
It makes no sense to asphalt a forest management path on which, for example, logging vehicles or transporters are being dragged or trees are being dragged.