“The will was there, but the dream has burst.” This is the conclusion drawn by Robert Weller (FW) from the feasibility study on the bicycle-friendly redesign of Kammergasse at the meeting of the planning committee of the Freising City Council. The effort would have been great, and the costs would have been correspondingly high. What would have been an improvement for Kammergasse would have worsened elsewhere. The city councils took note of the feasibility study. Now plans to redesign Mainburger Strasse are coming to the fore again.
The dedication of Kammergasse as a bicycle street had sparked controversial discussions both in the committee and on social media. Some want a car-free city center, others see this as a control. On the initiative of the city, Pablo Frank from the planning company Stadt – Land – Verkehr and Tobias Kramer from the Freisinger Toponauten presented their ideas on how Kammergasse as well as Hayd- and Alois-Steinecker-Straße could be designed into an “old town ring” around the city center.
The aim would have been to calm the traffic close to the city center. A prerequisite for this to work would have been the lifting of the one-way street regulation in Hayd- and Steinecker-Strasse. With sometimes serious consequences: In the lecture there was a lot of talk of redesigning intersections, relocating bus stops, changing bus routes, all of which was combined with an additional forest of signs.
Particularly negative: the volume of traffic on Steinecker-Strasse in the area between the clinic and Mainburger Strasse would increase enormously. And turning bans would shift some of the through traffic to Wippenhauser Straße, which is undesirable in view of the school center planned there.
“There are many pitfalls in there,” commented Mayor Tobias Eschenbacher (FSM) on the study. In his opinion, implementation would provoke many traffic violations. Much time and energy shouldn’t be spent on making Kammergasse perfect. If you want to relieve the northern city, then you have to bring people to the west bypass, if you already have it, said Manfred Drobny (Greens). Karl-Heinz Freitag (FW) demanded that Mainburger Strasse should be tackled instead of Kammergasse. Emilia Kirner (ÖDP) advised to see what can be implemented from the study and what does not cost too much.
“We need good and quick solutions,” she demanded. At least parts of the study should be implemented, said Monika Schwind (FSM). She particularly likes the idea of a bike connection through the courtyard garden at the Kammergasse Ost car park. Charlotte Reitsam (Greens) advised to listen better to the population. The Kammergasse does not play a role in this. They are more concerned with the Korbinian crossroads and the underpass at railway post 15. Incidentally, one must extract the positive from the study. And kicking the bin, as Emilia Kirner (ÖDP) thought she heard, Weller didn’t really want the study. “But it belongs in the drawer,” recommended Weller. To see what can be achieved later if necessary.
Drivers may be pleased that nothing will initially change in the traffic routing in the northern inner city area. “But we can’t avoid hurting one or the other,” predicted Werner Habermeyer (Greens). Traffic management must be made so unattractive for motorists that switching to bicycles is easier. Habermeyer suggested that “non-factional” get together to solve the traffic problems. Because: “We poke around selectively and achieve little.”
There will be no analysis of a possible shift of bicycle traffic from the city center to a bicycle-friendly Kammergasse. This cannot be implemented, replied Dominik Fuchs, who is responsible for the city’s mobility concept, to an application from the FDP.