Apart from the view of Munich’s most magnificent city gate, the Isartorplatz has little to offer, even if the activists of “Green City” have tried to create some quality of stay here as part of the summer “quarter turn”. The majority in the district committee (BA) Altstadt-Lehel has rejected three suggestions for improvement by the CSU for the time being, with a view to a three-year-old council resolution for an upgrading concept for which the requirements are now in place after the underground car park at Thomas-Wimmer-Ring has been completed.
In November 2018, the city council put the area at the top of a list of priorities, together with six other squares, but wants to observe how traffic is developing on the old town ring, which has now narrowed further north from six to four lanes. It remains questionable whether bold visions such as the re-installation of the city moat and the stream in front of the gate proposed by a Munich architect will become reality.
The much more modest examination request to illuminate the Fortunabrunnen on the small green area opposite the gate from May to September in the evening until 11 p.m. should put existing water features in the limelight. In the event of a tie, the proposal narrowly missed the BA majority in the event of a tie, even if it was the technically simplest proposal and received some approval.
With a majority of one vote, the BA rejected the idea of planting double hedges as noise protection on the square. According to the majority opinion, hedges could intensify a dark and threatening situation, especially around the underground entrances. The test application for a bridge over the Thomas-Wimmer-Ring to the north-east of the Isartor also fell through with a majority of one vote. At the moment, pedestrians can only cross the Altstadtring to the west, via the traffic lights on Frauenstrasse, or illegally via the cycle lane to the northeast – as can often be observed.
There is no doubt about the urgency in the BA, after all, this is where the central transition from the old town to Lehel is located. The underground crossing over the S-Bahn mezzanine is not barrier-free, even if at least access to the platform will soon be via lift. For Philippe Louis (Greens), the building site required for this in the green area is one of many reasons to wait for the proposed solutions from the planning department. At the moment, even after the underground car park has been completed, the entire area will actually remain a construction site and a “traffic area”, according to Louis, alluding to the idea of adding the eastward free-running right-turn lane into the Thomas-Wimmer-Ring to the mini-park.
The original “district turnaround” concept, which was rejected by the BA, provided for this, at least for a limited time. But the Green City campaign in particular showed the potential for short-term steps, according to applicant Bernhard Wittek (CSU). Nevertheless, the urban concept, which the BA is hoping to present for the first time in late autumn, should now, according to the resolution, only “take into account” instead of “incorporate”.