Efforts to designate Cramer-Klett-Strasse in Neubiberg as a cycle lane with free vehicle use continue. The district office has found that this order is legally inadmissible even after a change in the law. However, some municipal councils do not want to be satisfied with this because they see shortcomings in the argumentation. Therefore, at the suggestion of Kilian Körner (Greens), the municipal council decided by a majority on Tuesday that the topic should be dealt with again in the planning and environmental committee. The district office should also be invited, as well as traffic planner Ralf Kaulen, who accompanied Neubiberg with the cycling concept and suggested the bicycle road.
Everyone agrees that road safety on Cramer-Klett-Strasse needs to be improved, especially for schoolchildren – this is where the Neubiberg high school is located, and the secondary school nearby. There are a lot of cars there in the mornings. Pedestrians and children with scooters or bicycles crowd the sidewalks. Many cyclists dodge onto the road. Therefore, the designation as a bicycle street has been discussed for a long time. It would allow side-by-side driving on the street.
The “Initiative Fahrradstraße” has been campaigning for this for a long time; At the meeting, their spokespersons again advocated this “significantly better protection for significantly weaker road users”. As early as 2021, however, the district office had judged the designation of a cycle lane to be inadmissible in a statement. The council did not make a decision at the time. In May, the body formally accepted the motion of the Free Voters, the Greens and the SPD to take up the issue again. The hope was high: Because in November 2021, the corresponding administrative regulation on road traffic regulations had changed. According to this, it is no longer a prerequisite for the arrangement of a bicycle lane that bicycle traffic is the predominant type of traffic. It is sufficient if there is a high or expected high cycle traffic density.
After an on-site visit and a new check, the district office still considers the arrangement of the bicycle road to be inadmissible. It does not see the necessary bicycle traffic density. The main reason for the authority, however, as an employee of the municipal administration explained, was that there was no alternative traffic routing for the rest of the car traffic, including the three regular buses, on Cramer-Klett-Straße. On request, the Munich Transport and Tariff Association (MVV) also spoke out against it. From the point of view of the administration, the project could therefore not be continued successfully.
Some councilors disagreed. For example, Jürgen Knopp (Free Voters) complained that, according to information from the German Traffic Club, the alternative traffic route was just an example, not a must. He also cited a decision by the mobility committee of the Munich district office, according to which it had defined feeder routes for the district’s bicycle tangents. One of them should be Cramer-Klett-Strasse, and this should be designated as a bicycle lane if the municipality thinks it is good.
Kilian Körner saw the opinion of the district office as incorrect. Among other things, he complained that the traffic density was determined visually, although counts had already been made. He therefore suggested that the committee should consider it again. SPD parliamentary group leader Elisabeth Gerner also advocated this. CSU parliamentary group spokesman Léon Bogner and Mayor Thomas Pardeller (CSU) disagreed. “The fact is: the arrangement of the bicycle street is not possible,” said Pardeller. He doesn’t expect much from another treatment. Rather, he campaigned for the committee to commission the administration to examine alternative, legal measures to improve student cycling. The majority, however, opted for another round in committee.