Paula, Hermine and Mathilde work hard. With rakes, brooms and the large pedal tractor, the four and six year old girls shovel leaves from their driveway into the garbage can. Her mothers, Denise Avdullahu and Anne Krahmer, do not let her out of sight. Not because the girls couldn’t use the devices. But because a truck could turn into the narrow street at any time.
Münchner Strasse, “the old B11”, which is now a state road, and with it a lot of traffic, runs right through the Garching district of Dirnismaning. Through traffic to Munich, but also heavy goods traffic. Because more and more companies have rented rooms in Dirnismaning in recent years. Machine manufacturers, forklift dealers, a household goods store, a truck driving school and a car salesman have their premises here; At the end of the street where Avdullahu’s house is, there is the warehouse of a fashion outlet and a bus company with parking spaces. Lots of companies with large vehicles. Not necessarily compatible with young children.
But there are always more of them in Dirnismaning. Only last winter, Krahmer moved with her husband and two daughters from Garching to Dirnismaning after a termination for personal use, to a newly built apartment building that was specifically rented to families. “The house and our property are absolutely child-friendly, we feel good,” says Krahmer. “But the traffic management makes it difficult.”
There is no market place or town center with shops here
Dirnismaning’s history goes back a long way, the district is characterized by a handful of agricultural farms, some of which are still operated as such today. As in a typical street village, the few residential buildings are grouped like grapes along the main street; There is no market place or town center with shops; Small roads lead to the outside, once to the fields. Today some of them are built on with large halls or company premises. During the Second World War, the city of Munich had halls built at the southern end of Dirnismaning, which are now used by businesses and a riding stables.
You can still see his history in Dirnismaning. The streets off the main road do not have their own names, have no sidewalks or even road markings. That wasn’t a problem for a long time. “But the district has changed,” says Avdullahu, who herself grew up with her sister Nicole Wittmann in Dirnismaning. “Today there are many more families living here.” The city currently has 175 inhabitants, 31 of whom are 17 years or younger; 14 of the children are up to six years old, six of them seven or eight years old.
Anne Krahmer (right) and Denise Avdullahu would like a better connection with Garching.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
That is the reason why Avdullahu, Krahmer and other parents want more infrastructure and a better connection to Garching. “In the past the bus drove through Dirnismaning every half hour,” Avdullahu recalls. Then the construction of the U6 came to Garching, via Hochbrück, past Dirnismaning. Today the 293 bus runs once an hour in each direction during core times from Monday to Friday; There is no bus at all on the weekends. At the town’s meeting recently, Avdullahu and her husband therefore proposed that dirnismaning be better connected. The families in the district also want a public playground, also to have a place where the residents can meet.
At the gathering, the motions got a lot of support. Mayor Dietmar Gruchmann (SPD) does not want to refuse the wishes either. However, he points out that the bus connection was only used by a few people in attempts in the past. The district is responsible for public transport. “The number of passengers is crucial,” says Gruchmann. The city council therefore currently sees no possibility of advocating a strengthening of the line, but merely ensuring the connection for the school children and otherwise maintaining the current rhythm.
The city also sees little leeway when it comes to playgrounds: the city itself does not have a suitable site in Dirnismaning. In the next major construction project, the municipality wants to work with the building owners, according to the will of the city council, to ensure that a playground is created that all Dirnismaning children can use. In addition, Gruchmann promises that at least the publicly dedicated road that leads from Münchner Straße to the bridge over the motorway and which many cyclists also use, should receive better regulation so that there is no longer any confusion between road users.
One could of course ask provocatively, why does someone move to a more distant part of the city if they want a dense public transport cycle? “Of course the question is whether the city and the district want to afford the luxury of connecting all citizens,” says Felix Krahmer. “But if the government names a nationwide public transport connection as a goal, it should also meet that. And we need the living space, especially around Munich.”