Green is trump: Mittenwald fights against asphalt desert

Created: 11/29/2022, 11:00 am

By: Christof Schnürer

Vision 2024: This is what the lower parking level at the Kranberg chairlift valley station should look like.

© Graphic: market town of Mittenwald

The car park for the Kranzberg chairlift serves its purpose - but nothing more.

Now the lower tier is expected to undergo cosmetic surgery in 2024 with lavish government grants.

Mittenwald

– The magic word is, even if it sounds ugly: area unsealing.

What does this concept of bureaucrat mean in practice?

Asphalt surfaces disappear and are replaced by water-permeable surfaces including bushes and trees.

Is good for nature and aesthetics - at least that's what the Bavarian state government thinks and has therefore launched a funding program.

One from which the Mittenwald tourism community now wants to benefit.

For example, the lower parking level of the Kranzberg chairlift is to be transformed from an asphalt desert into a green lung for lavish cash - probably in 2024.

There were seven variants to choose from in the market town council.

The last one won with 13:5 votes.

The parking spaces will be reduced from 67 to 61 (including three disabled parking spaces).

The tramlines, each 4.75 meters wide, are arranged on the valley side.

There are four parking bays on the west side of the access road, west of which three cars can be parked alongside the road.

A toilet facility is also to be built at the entrance in the north.

The total costs amount to around 914,000 euros gross.

The state covers 80 percent of the chargeable costs.

But sweets or not - Second Mayor Georg Seitz (free voters), employed by the building yard for professional reasons, does not find any variant to be expedient.

"A parking lot shouldn't be pretty, it should be functional." In addition, you lose more parking spaces through the green charm offensive - the "Gratz'n-Schorsch" prefers to call it a "labyrinth".

What the snowplow-tested Seitz also asks himself: “Where is the snow supposed to go up there in winter?” Kurt Seeler from the commissioned Kempten engineering office “PBU Beratende Ingenieure GmbH” replied: “We are thinking of a green area for snow deposits. "

Not a visual treat: This is what the lower parking level currently looks like.

©Wolfgang Kunz

On the subject of parking space reduction, Verena Hilmer, head of the civil engineering department, said: "There will never be enough parking spaces up there." In this context, she gave food for thought: "Maybe we should think about a shuttle service."

Benedikt Zunterer (CSU), like the previous speaker Seitz, can basically not see anything positive about the whole thing despite all the weighing.

"I rarely agree with Georg, but there's nothing to prettify." True to the motto: Better practical, but ugly.

But Franz Lipp (Free Voters) sees this completely differently than his counterpart.

"Just because a chairlift is nostalgic doesn't mean that the parking space that goes with it is horrible." It is well known that the one-chair lift from 1950 will be in its 74th year of operation in 2023 with unmistakable post-war charm.

Similar to the lift, the parking spaces have not changed much over the years