Of
Heiner Effern
Balanstraße in the east of Munich will not be a one-way street. The city hall coalition of the Greens/Pink List and SPD/Volt had given up this plan, the SPD said in a statement on Sunday. The Greens confirmed the move away from the idea. The closure of the Balanstrasse out of town would have sealed off access to the nationally frequented shopping center of the V-Markt with a wholesale store, hardware store and petrol station. Now both lanes are to be retained in the area between Orleansstrasse and St. Martin-Strasse.
Deutsche Bahn is currently renovating the railway bridge in this area of Balanstraße. Green-Red wanted to take this opportunity to restrict car traffic and give cyclists and buses more space. However, local residents, district politicians and the operators of the shopping center opposed this concept from the start. They feared major detours for many Munich residents and especially the alternative traffic on Rosenheimer Strasse, the main artery from the city center to the Salzburg autobahn. This is already a single lane in this area because the second lane was closed to cyclists. It was said in Haidhausen that they could no longer tolerate more car traffic.
According to the SPD, plans were also criticized that buses and cyclists would have had to share a lane in the newly sorted Balanstraße. Now the cycle paths are to be widened in this hitherto narrow section under the railway bridge in such a way that they meet the requirements of the Radentscheid for more safety and comfort.