Democracy can be tiring at times. The four-year-old boy, who came with his parents to the residents’ meeting at the church center in Haidhausen, has meanwhile fallen asleep on his mother’s lap – regardless of the heated debates around him. But the evening is already long, the 120 present have submitted a total of 25 motions, which are now being voted on. They all revolve around the snail burger street – a 400 meter long street in the north of Haidhausen – and whether and how this should be traffic-calmed. Or to put it another way: whether eternal summer has arrived here, to the east of the clinic on the right bank of the Isar. Because the section in the Spiral Burger Street was once a car-free play street – as a so-called summer street.
Their concept is to give pedestrians more space in the warm months – usually at the expense of cars. Since the introduction in 2020, the city has converted a total of 32 street sections into summer streets from July to September, 23 of them as traffic-calmed areas and nine as real play streets. The idea behind it is “to create additional places to stay in very different places in the city and right on your own doorstep,” said Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD).
This has been well received by many Munich residents, as city hall evaluations show. “The 2021 summer roads were a success overall,” said a spokeswoman for the mobility department. The measures at the Kosttor in the old town, in Mittersendlinger Schöttlstraße and at the Holzplatz in the Isarvorstadt were particularly positive. The latter should now be permanently redesigned.
Opponents fear the noise of children playing and the loss of parking spaces
The same is what many of the residents of the worm burger road want, on whose initiative the district committee Au-Haidhausen (BA) had suggested the summer road there in the first place. They argue that the road also poses a hazard because of the closely parked cars, not least for children. In addition, there is a great need for play areas there, which is reflected in the often overcrowded playground. On the other hand, the opponents of a permanent summer road, who have also collected signatures for their proposal, fear the noise of children playing and reject the threatened loss of around 15 parking spaces.
In December, the SPD faction in the BA submitted an application for a review of a permanent summer road. Accordingly, the town hall should investigate whether a part of the worm burger street to the play street and in another section a one-way street could be designated. Since both citizens spoke out for and against this idea in the meeting at the time, the BA adjourned the application. The committee also decided to convene a residents’ meeting to get an opinion.
Now one could easily dismiss the discussion about the snail burger road as a neighborhood dispute. But it actually reflects several questions that have led to conflicts in many places in Munich for several years. For example: How should the scarce space be distributed in the most densely populated city in Germany, which is also constantly growing? Or: How much noise can and must the people in their neighborhood endure given the cramped conditions? And of course – just think of sidewalk cafés, cycle paths and parklets: after decades of dominance, how much space will the car have to give up for other road users in the future?
A clear majority supports the Spielstraße
In the residents’ meeting in Haidhausen, a clear picture quickly emerges from the votes: a large majority of those present support the motion, which advocates a permanent play area at the playground and a traffic-calmed area in a larger section of the street. However, all demands not to set up a permanent summer road due to the threatening noise and the lack of parking spaces are rejected. It is of course still unclear whether this will actually happen. In a next step, the BA will now have to decide which application to submit to the town hall. And only then, after thorough examination, will a decision be made.
And yet the opponents of an eternal summer are audibly and visibly disappointed when the balance of power in the room becomes apparent after the first votes. It can’t be, complains a woman, that the voices of her neighbors who live further away have the same weight as hers – since she, as a direct resident of the playground, suffers much more from the noise. Even before all the applications have been dealt with, she and many of her fellow campaigners leave the room in anger – past the boy who is still sleeping. Democracy can sometimes not only be tiring – it can also be frustrating.