It’s been 19 years since the people of Holzkirchner last voted on another bypass for their market town. Almost three quarters of those who voted in 2003 spoke out in favor of a southern bypass. However, the new road has not been built in the meantime, and from today’s perspective that is obviously a good thing. Because on Sunday, after a council request decided by the municipal councils, the people of Holzkirchner were again asked to decide on a southern bypass. More than half of the 13,000 eligible voters voted, a high value for a referendum – especially one that did not take place at the same time as an election. But the decision was even clearer on Sunday evening: 59.42 percent no longer want to know anything about a Holzkirchner southern bypass over the green meadow in 2022, 70.15 percent reject the subsequent bypass around Großhartpenning and Kurzenberg.
The Holzkirchners are following the example set by the residents of the Upper Bavarian district town of Weilheim four weeks ago: at least eight variants for a bypass were up for debate there, but a clear majority of 54.6 percent did not want to see any of these many variants implemented at all . In both cases, the citizens could have ended decades of planning with their decisions, because in both cases the responsible building authorities had previously asserted that they wanted to accept the result. So are the times when local politicians could call for bypasses as a panacea for all traffic problems and the authorities were quick to come up with generous plans?
In any case, the two referendums in Holzkirchen and Weilheim are trendy. They say so both at the association “More Democracy” in Bavaria, which wants to strengthen direct democracy and thus citizens’ and referendums, as well as at the community day and in the environmental scene. Between 2020 and 2022 there were significantly more referendums for more environmental protection in the transport policy of the Bavarian municipalities than 20 years before, says Simon Strohmenger from Mehr Demokratie. In addition, the respective decisions went much more often in favor of environmental protection than before. A comparatively large number of procedures are currently still open. But of the 16 that were completed, twelve went out for more environmental protection, only four failed. 20 years ago, the successful and failed decisions would have roughly balanced each other out.
“Especially among the younger generation, the topics of environmental protection, ubiquitous consumption and the climate crisis have really hit home,” agrees Wilfried Schober from the Bavarian Municipal Council, “but many older people are now also saying that more and more bypass roads can’t do anything about the ever-increasing car traffic. ” He himself is increasingly hearing the demand “that we finally have to get to the root of the problem and reduce car traffic” – be it by strengthening local public transport or relying more on alternative means of transport such as e-bikes.
Many councils shy away from projects
At the same time, they experience in the municipal day that both some mayors and entire municipal councils are reluctant to commit themselves to a large infrastructure project and prefer to first ask the population about it. “Such a planning process is something very complex, which affects the staff as well as the costs and the time required,” says Schober. “Local politicians increasingly want to avoid the risk that everything will be shot up afterwards in a referendum.”
But that is exactly what makes the referendums a problem from the point of view of the President of the Municipal Council, Uwe Brandl (CSU). “Because it’s the residents of the thoroughfare who are suffering and want the bypass,” says Brandl, who is also the mayor of Abensberg in Lower Bavaria. “Measured against the total population of a community, however, they are in the minority and are easily outvoted.” Community day spokesman Schober also says, “actually it is the mayor and the municipal council who decide on such projects and should weigh up the different interests of the population”.
Municipal council president Uwe Brandl reminds that the directly affected residents of congested through roads are usually in the minority in referendums.
(Photo: Armin Weigel/dpa)
Be that as it may, the environmental organizations are delighted with the outcome of the votes in Holzkichen and Weilheim. “Obviously we are no longer alone in our demand for a new transport policy,” says Richard Mergner, chairman of the Bund Naturschutz (BN). “More and more people are asking for them too.” Mergner expressly includes farmers in this. “When it comes to a nonsensical road, it is now more and more common for a district farmer or a representative of the farmers’ association to speak out against the surface consumption at our events right after me,” reports Mergner. For him, the immense popularity of the 9-euro ticket this summer is strong evidence that “people want a turnaround in transport”.
Here and there, of course, people still want detours. Colorful lights flashed through a new, 600-meter-long tunnel near Bertoldshofen in Ostallgäu at the weekend. Thousands came to the tunnel party to celebrate the inauguration. Many visitors were not even born when the first discussions about bypasses for Bertoldshofen and Marktoberdorf started – more than 30 years ago. The Bavarian Administrative Court dismissed the last lawsuits against the route in 2016. The tunnel is now complete and should be open to traffic before Christmas. The federal government is investing 100 million euros in the infrastructure around Marktoberdorf, 52 million of which is for the tunnel alone. Criticism of one of the largest transport projects in Swabia has not been heard for a long time.