As of: February 12, 2024, 8:00 p.m
By: Christof Schnürer
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Need for discussion: Mayor Enrico Corongiu (l.) and the former Mittenwald police chief Hubert Hohenleitner.
© Peter Kornatz
The people of Mittenwald will probably remember Carnival Saturday 2024 for a long time.
But it wasn't colorful images that stuck with them, but rather boring avalanches of metal.
The weekend's monstrous traffic jam seemingly came out of nowhere - and now raises questions for the future.
Mittenwald
– Hubert Hohenleitner knows his stuff – when it comes to Mittenwald and traffic development.
“But unfortunately I can’t play Pan Tau and magic the cars away.” The former police chief Unterm Karwendel (2020 to 2023), who is now working in his hometown again, is of course alluding to the traffic chaos on Carnival Saturday.
From morning to evening, transients on their way south clogged Mittenwald's local streets.
Even in the most remote corners of the climatic health resort, cars with a wide variety of license plates polluted the residential areas.
“It was an extremely unpleasant Saturday for Mittenwald,” says traffic expert Hohenleitner, who of course received a call from the town hall yesterday.
At the other end was Enrico Corongiu.
“Events like this make you think,” says the mayor.
Especially since the sheet metal avalanche rolled across his hometown completely unexpectedly.
“At 8:30 a.m. everything was still great,” says Corongiu.
“At 9:30 a.m. all hell broke loose, it all happened so damn quickly.” And without any warning.
Suddenly Mittenwald hit him - gridlock.
But is there a recipe to prevent or at least contain such a situation in the future?
In this context, Corongiu speaks of an “early warning system”.
He would like to discuss this in an early conversation with representatives of the district office and the police.
Car after car: This is what it looks like on Mühlenweg everywhere on Carnival Saturday in Mittenwald.
© private
Hubert Hohenleitner, the intimate expert on local and long-distance transport, will certainly be asked for an assessment.
What many people don't know: "Shrove Saturday is the busiest travel day of the year." Changing beds, beginning of vacation.
Hohenleitner speaks of “insane travel” from Belgium and the Netherlands.
“Then everything meets on the road” – in the current case on the completely overloaded B 2. All empirical values that could perhaps have been estimated.
But then this weekend there was also the block clearance at the Achenpass and a traffic accident on the Fernpass road, which apparently led to a massive evasive movement through the Upper Isar Valley.
“You don’t expect that,” explains Hohenleitner.
“So many factors came together.” And then there are – a blessing and a curse at the same time – navigation devices that quickly drive you through towns to shorten your journey time.
“It's often only a matter of a minute, but people do it.” So car after car lines up, nothing works anymore - and the people of Mittenwald no longer understand the world, and some of them are really pissed off.
The town hall received many emails on Monday, as well as phone calls.
“That was a lot,” reports Corongiu, not to mention countless personal conversations.
But how can locals protect themselves from unnecessary traffic jams, dust and exhaust fumes in the future?
For example, can the local fire department be alerted and quickly set up checkpoints with beacons in residential areas?
“It’s all a legal question,” says Hohenleitner, referring to the district office.
Yesterday on Shrove Monday there was no comment on this topic.
Basically, expert Hohenleitner advises keeping the ball flat.
In this context, it reminds us of the last traffic collapse in Mittenwald - on Carnival Saturday in 2010. At that time, the entire traffic was forced through Mittenwald due to various avalanche closures.
Then peace returned for 14 years.