The Lindau Autobahn in the Munich city area will be closed for an hour on Sunday. The rally, with which the cycling club ADFC would like to draw attention to the Radentscheid Bayern, also leads over a section of the A 96. Between 8,000 and 10,000 cyclists will then possibly be on the road there.
The Time schedule of the ADFC stipulates that the participants in the rally coming from the north and south on the Mittlerer Ring drive up at around 1:40 p.m. at the start of the autobahn in Sendling and leave the expressway again 15 minutes later in Blumenau. But the senior police director Steffen Küpper knows that the times will probably only remain approximate.
Temperature, number of participants, pace: everything is still open
There are still too many unknowns in the commander’s calculation. First of all, there is the weather. Whether it will rain on Sunday – and if so, when – is still unclear. However, this should have a major impact on the actual number of participants and how quickly the cyclists progress.
But what the head of the entire traffic area at the Munich police headquarters already knows is that blocking the motorway for fifteen minutes will not do the trick. The section of the route must be completely car-free before the cyclists can start. The use of the Lindau motorway will therefore only be possible for at least one hour to and from the Gräfelfing junction. Further into the city, the lanes then temporarily belong to cyclists. Incidentally, both directions of travel are blocked – for safety reasons.
The Mittlerer Ring – from the south from the Grünwalder Stadion, for example, from the north from the Petuelring – is blocked again and again in sections, while the 16 arms of the rally come to Munich, join forces there and then drive together to the final rally on the Königsplatz. Between 12.30 p.m. and 3 p.m. it should only be slow for drivers in Munich on Sunday.
Graduation isn’t the end of the streets
But even after the rally is over, Küpper expects there to be disabilities when the participants in the rally cycle home or to the nearest train stations. Then no longer as a demonstration train, but still in smaller groups. The police want to inform about traffic jams and closures on Twitter and via traffic radio.
It is unclear whether climate protection activists could possibly use the road closures for their own unregistered protest actions. An abseiling and poster campaign on the pedestrian bridge over the Petuelring, on the other hand, has already been announced – according to the police, it should take place immediately after the cyclists have passed through, if the Mittlerer Ring is still closed at this point anyway.
Participants in the rally come to Munich with their bicycles from all over Upper Bavaria and from the Augsburg area. A total of almost a thousand police officers will be on duty in southern Bavaria to ensure the safety of cyclists and to regulate traffic. The police headquarters in Munich alone will deploy up to 500 officers.
“At eye level”: Steffen Küpper heads the operation of the 500 Munich police officers on Sunday.
(Photo: Martin Bernstein)
Numerous volunteer fire brigades and the Technical Relief Agency will support the police with the closures and diversions as a central part of the operation. Each arm of the rally will also have its own police escort – including officers on bicycles. According to head of operations Küpper, they would like to meet “at eye level” at what is probably a “family-oriented event”.