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Photo: Strava
In these spring days, you can see some red traffic lights, which has not long been part of the usual picture in Germany's cities: queues form at rush hours in the morning and at the end of the day - with cyclists on their way to work.
In the corona crisis, the bicycle, which has been becoming more popular for years, has become even more popular.
There is much evidence that people avoid buses and trains in the pandemic and that a large number of people switch to bicycles.
There is also evidence that more people commute to work by bike than before the crisis.
This is suggested by data from the Strava social network.
According to this, the share of journeys recorded as commuter routes in Hamburg grew by almost a quarter (23.5 percent) in 2020 compared to 2019. A similar picture emerges in Berlin (22.1 percent).
The increases in Cologne and Munich are smaller at around 13 percent and 7 percent.
However, this data is not representative - the Strava app is mainly used by younger and sporty people.
In addition, more and more cyclists are on the move electrically - the share of sales of e-bikes rose to almost 40 percent in 2020, which is higher than ever.
And the e-bike boom is creating a new type of commuter that is tearing long distances.
Electrification motivates people to commute - this is clear to the Berlin traffic lobbyist Heinrich Strossenreuther.
"And they don't arrive at the office wet sweat, that's difficult with a normal bike - especially on hot days," he says.
With pedal assistance, 12 to 15 kilometers in the saddle to work are no longer a problem.
"We are seeing a significant increase in range with the pedelec," says Claudia Nobis, mobility researcher at the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
Although the trend towards commuting by bike is currently being slowed down by the need to work from home, she sees an "enormous shift potential" in favor of bicycles and pedelecs.
So far, more than 50 percent of the routes with a length of five to ten kilometers have been covered by car.
There are other signs that commutes to work in the saddle are getting longer: for example, leasing bicycles, which are often delivered as e-bikes, are booming.
The number of company bicycles almost doubled to around 700,000 in 2020, says Wasilis von Rauch from the Federal Association of Future Bicycle (BVZF).
But the faster cyclists are on the move thanks to the electric tailwind, the higher the risk of accidents - especially for commuters.
Because when commuting, the area of use of pedelecs is shifting from the country, where they are mainly used by older cyclists for tours, to the city.
There is greater potential for accidents there, says Siegfried Brockmann, head of accident research for insurers in the German Insurance Association (GDV).
"Two-thirds of accidents involving bicycles take place when turning, at intersections and at entrances and exits to property." Generally, then, in cities and larger towns.
More pedelec riders killed
The higher average speed of pedelecs tends to lead to more serious injuries in accidents, warns Brockmann.
The risk is only weakened by the fact that commuters are younger cyclists: "When they fall, they tend to get away with a graze and don't break their thigh necks straight away."
However, the statistics give cause for concern: While fewer cyclists were killed in road accidents in 2020, the number of pedelec riders killed increased significantly compared to 2019.
Inadequate infrastructure exacerbates the risk, complain bike lobbyists and accident researchers.
The bike paths in many German cities are ailing and badly planned.
The BVZF managing director of Rauch rates the pop-up cycle paths set up last year as a “great step”.
In Berlin they would have made some of the main arteries safely passable for cyclists in the first place.
"But there is no real network of cycle paths in any city."
Another approach to making commuting by bike safer is cycle superhighways.
Such connections already exist in the Ruhr area and Göttingen.
They plan cities like Stuttgart, Mannheim or Berlin - albeit often at a snail's pace.
Cyclists rarely have to reckon with crossing traffic on the routes, they get to the center or even the neighboring city faster.
Advocates praise the concept that these paths relieve the burden on access roads when drivers switch to bicycles.
"Your success will depend on the fact that potential conflicts with other road users are actually avoided," says Jörg Kubitzki, traffic safety researcher at the Allianz Center for Technology.
Professional colleague Brockmann also remains skeptical.
If more bicycle traffic flows into the cities via cycle superhighways, it should not encounter an outdated infrastructure there.
Even without the bicycle highways, bicycle traffic would increase "without touching critical points".
For Heinrich Strossenreuther, who recently became a member of the Berlin CDU, the “transport policy scandal” consists in “the fear that many do not switch to bicycles” when they have to share the lane with cars and trucks.
Many intersections would have to be rebuilt.
According to BVZF managing director von Rauch, the infrastructure deficits are slowing down the current bicycle boom.
Families in particular could do without the second car if more everyday journeys were to be made in the saddle, says lobbyist Strossenreuther.
But this has apparently hardly happened so far - many people even get into their cars more often during the pandemic.