Waakirchner municipal council rejects the southern bypass - sympathy for the zero solution

Created: 2022-02-10Updated: 2022-02-10 10:13 AM

By: Christina Jachert-Maier

It often gets tight at the lion monument in the center of Waakirchner village.

Ways to improve the situation are still being sought.

© Thomas Plettenberg

A positioning of the Waakirchner municipal council on the topic of bypasses was required.

The committee rejects a simple southern bypass, more expensive variants do not seem feasible.

The call for the zero solution was new.

Waakirchen –

The construction of a southern bypass for Waakirchen has been part of the Federal Transport Route Plan (BVWP) 2030 since 2017. The route outlined there for almost eight million euros did not please the former municipal council either.

The "cheap solution" was rejected by resolution, instead the committee had a plan drawn up itself.

The result was a bypass that was mostly buried in the ground (83.5 million euros), which was to be combined with a bypass of Hauserdörfl.

It should be this variant or a local tunnel (120 million euros).

This was the decision before the local elections in 2020. After that, the newly elected mayor Norbert Kerkel (FWG) was given the task of justifying the enormous additional costs for the alternatives favored by the municipality to the Rosenheim State Building Authority.

Kerkel announced the result publicly for the first time at the beginning of the municipal council meeting: The attempt to justify it failed right from the start.

Only an argument with nature conservation would have been conceivable, said Kerkel.

But all the institutes had rejected the commission to prepare an expert report because they were hopeless: "They said we could save the money." The expensive solutions were therefore not feasible.

"Against any form of bypass"

With a unanimous vote, the current board upheld the decision of the former municipal council to reject the southern bypass.

What has changed: A large proportion of local councils do not want a new road, whether above or below ground.

"We are against any form of bypass," said Evi Obermüller (Greens).

Additional roads only shifted traffic.

She advocates achieving improvements in the short term with various measures - pedestrian crossings, speed limits and the like.

"There shouldn't be any bans on thinking."

Alfred Finger (CSU) stood by her side.

He recommends applying whisper asphalt.

He doesn't think it makes sense to build new roads: "Let's leave it as it is." Gisela Hölscher (FW) warned against using a bypass to primarily transport transit traffic to other places: "We'll pull it traffic here."

Everyone in the committee agreed that the situation on the through roads in Waakirchen and Hauserdörfl needed to be improved quickly.

Finding solutions here was just as unanimously decided as the previous rejection of the southern bypass.

Majority decision for the search for a long-term solution

There was also a third point to be voted on.

It was about the key question: Does the municipal council want to end the bypass planning altogether or keep one door open?

In any case, according to Kerkel, the southern bypass will remain part of the BVWP, which will apply until 2030.

The sentence was put to the vote: "We should continue to try to find a long-term, generally acceptable solution for both districts of Waakirchen and Hauserdörfl".

With 13:6 votes, this statement found a majority.

A planning proposal developed by the Citizens' Initiative for Traffic (BI) will also be discussed in future talks with the Rosenheim State Building Authority.

He envisages a 400 meter long tunnel between the town hall and the gas station, other sections are to be taken in troughs or enclosed.

The costs should amount to 20 to 25 million euros.

“We are at a fork in the road”

Michael Mohrenweiser (ABV) warned against simply doing nothing now.

The traffic is there and will continue to increase.

He considers it populist to distance himself from everything now.

The municipal council must find the courage to look for solutions: "We are at a fork in the road."

Numerous listeners followed the debate, including Lars Hülsmann from the citizens' movement, which rejects a bypass.

He would have liked a clear no to a bypass: "Now the tactics continue." Rainer Küppers from BI Verkehr, supporter of the bypass, sees room for further planning due to the desire for improvements.

For him it is also clear because of the risk of serious accidents: "Heavy goods traffic belongs out of Waakirchen."

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