As of: February 26, 2024, 12:20 a.m
By: Martin Becker
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The community of Unterhaching has been struggling for years to come up with a concept on the way to becoming a “bicycle-friendly community”.
One aspect: the bicycle parking options at the S-Bahn station.
© Martin Becker
The trial period is running: The municipality of Unterhaching has to make improvements in order to be included in the working group for bicycle-friendly municipalities in Bavaria.
Unterhaching – The pace?
Oh well.
“Good things take time,” said Stefan König, spokesman for the Unterhaching Greens.
“The whole thing has been taking a very long time.” At least things are moving forward – after four and a quarter years.
Topic: Unterhaching's membership in the “Working Group for Bicycle-Friendly Municipalities in Bavaria” (AGFK).
In order to comply with the regulations, the municipality must and wants to make a fundamental decision.
Until the cyclist benefits from it: It will probably take a while.
But first things first.
In December 2019, the CSU and the Greens applied for AGFK membership; in February 2021, the local council took up this idea and passed a corresponding resolution in November 2022.
In January 2023, the AGFK evaluation commission finally approved Unterhaching's accession - where the declarations of intent must now be followed by action: the probationary period (until 2026) is running.
AGFK requires a “clear political concept”.
So, after more than four years of advance: How exactly does the municipality of Unterhaching want to promote bicycle traffic?
Because the town hall administration lacks the capacity for this, an external specialist office is now to develop a concept for up to 50,000 euros with the aim of increasing the local share of cycling by five percentage points.
The “fundamental decision” on this approach was controversially discussed, but ultimately recommended to the local council as worthy of approval - except by the FDP.
There is no question that Charlotte Schmidt from the mobility department put a lot of effort into promoting “tailor-made measures” and calling for a “clear political concept” - this is what the AGFK requires.
And that's exactly the crux of the matter: after all these years, such a concept doesn't exist in Unterhaching.
Which is why external experts should now develop it.
CSU misses concrete starting points to resolve conflicting points
“This concept,” explained Charlotte Schmidt, “is part of a large system.” Bicycle traffic, mobility, climate – all of this is intertwined under the umbrella term of local development planning.
For the AGFK membership, it is currently a matter of “optimizing the cycling concept”.
In detail: current analysis, surveys, traffic counts, defining the target state, implementation.
According to the timeline, results should be visible by 2025.
Lots of beautiful words that caused the CSU to roll their eyes.
“Cycling instead of talking,” Korbinian Rausch formulated his message succinctly: “When will we finally get into action?” We move from one concept to the next – it’s all too slow for the CSU parliamentary group leader.
Party colleague Franz Felzmann also found: "There's too much theory in it for me - we're missing concrete starting points for resolving conflicting points." As examples, Felzmann cited the bicycle parking facilities at both S-Bahn stations, the cycle path on the east side of the S-Bahn and the connection from the school campus
FDP is bothered by the 50,000 euros that taxpayers will receive
The FWU parliamentary group leader Alfons Hofstetter also criticized “the fact that not a single cycle path will be built by 2025”.
His impression: “Through all the concepts and reports, we have lost sight of the actual goal, namely the expansion of cycle paths.”
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The FDP was bothered by the up to 50,000 euros that would now be spent on an external office at the taxpayer's expense.
“For financial reasons we say no.
“The next few years seem to be going to be very bleak,” said Maidment, pointing out bottlenecks in the town hall’s treasury.
Stefan König from the Greens disagreed, despite understanding the criticism of the snail's pace: "Calling off AGFK membership because of 50,000 euros would be a fatal signal."
For the SPD, Mayor Wolfgang Panzer and local council member Harald Nottmeyer emphasized that it was now “not about individual measures” and that it was “too early for details”.
Charlotte Schmidt summarized: “Instead of the previous patchwork, we want to find a holistic solution from a single source.
But for that we need external know-how.” If the local council approves on February 28th, this will now be contributed by a specialist office.