"See and the City" in Starnberg: closure with far-reaching consequences
Created: 05/04/2022, 20:00
By: Peter Schiebel
Employees of the depot started yesterday with the redesign of the station square.
© Andrea Jaksch
The preparatory work for the "See and the City" project in Starnberg had an impact beyond the city on Wednesday.
In the morning traffic backed up towards the Autobahn up to the Maxhofkreisel.
The station square is still completely closed on Thursday.
Starnberg – Nothing worked anymore on the B 2, nothing worked anymore on Possenhofener Straße: Anyone who wanted to drive a vehicle from Weilheim to or through Starnberg on Wednesday had the best nerves of steel.
Because the city had closed the station square, traffic backed up in the morning hours up to the Maxhofkreisel.
Right in the middle: Marion Ranke, who has been running the lingerie shop "Louisa's" in the See-Arkaden in Starnberg for 30 years.
The 53-year-old lives in Feldafing.
On Wednesday she left her car somewhere on Possenhofener Strasse and walked the last part to her shop.
"It's unbelievable that a city is paralyzed like this," the businesswoman said angrily in an interview with Starnberger Merkur.
The lockdown is related to the See and the City project.
For all non-Starnbergers: Under this name, the city wants to try out whether and how the quality of stay in the Bahnhofplatz/Bayerischer Hof/Seebahnhof area can be improved, especially for pedestrians and cyclists.
The project starts with a big family party on Saturday, May 14th, and lasts around four and a half months until October 3rd.
During this time, cars are allowed to enter the station square, but the lane width will be narrowed to 6.50 meters and the maximum speed will be reduced from 30 to 20 km/h.
There are also no parking spaces, for example at the roundabout at the Bayerischer Hof.
In return, there are more areas for pedestrians.
Some of these are designed and decorated with flower pots by students from the high school's P seminar.
There are also cultural and gastronomic offers.
The design and marking work for this has begun and will last – please note – until probably Thursday, 6 p.m.
Until then, the station square is completely closed.
The taxi drivers Ramazan Kesser (left) and Güngör Aydogan fear that the area will be too narrow.
© Andrea Jaksch
Mayor Patrick Janik asks for your understanding.
"That's a bit out of the category 'Where there's planing, there are shavings,'" he says when asked.
The work could not be done during normal traffic.
He does not see that the effects on Mkittwoch could already be a foretaste of the campaign period.
"It would be a bit premature to take the day of the full closure as a benchmark," he says, while also referring to the overwhelming majority in the city council for the project.
In addition, the traffic jams showed "the amount of traffic we handle through the city center."
With the redesign, the city wants to try out what works in this "sensitive area" and what doesn't.
That is why all measures are also temporary, so they can be dismantled without great expense.
"The alternative is to do nothing," says Janik and adds thoughtfully: "If you consider the status quo to be worth preserving." The mayor is confident: "I think that summer at Bahnhofplatz will be fun, including for retailers. "
"I'm happy to be proven wrong," says Marion Ranke from "Louisa's", who has been skeptical so far.
"Whether they put up one more bucket or one more food truck, that's why more people don't come to the city," she fears.
She has also never experienced chaos like Wednesday.
"There's nothing going on anymore, I haven't had any sales for two days," she reports from the restricted area.
Corona crisis, Ukraine war - "we are already battered to no end anyway".
If the city had at least shifted the work into the night hours.
Taxi entrepreneur Ramazan Keser (49) also reacted to the closure by shaking his head.
The taxis have to park their vehicles at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße roundabout just before the gravel car park until Thursday.
"That's not optimal," says Keser and describes how an elderly man with a walker had to walk a long way because of it.
And also: The fact that he now has to take detours also increases the costs for customers.
"It's all a bit difficult."