There are shadows and lights on Munich’s streets when implementing the decision to vote. On this day, the bikers don’t want to look into the shadows. They want to distribute praise, four years after the city council decided to implement the demands of the Radentscheid. In other words, creating a good network of cycle paths and making the old town ring bike-friendly, for which 160,000 signatures were collected. Of 65 road sections that the city council wants to convert, two are finished and two are under construction.
Julia Schnell came to Marienplatz in a yellow T-shirt with the Radentscheid logo. “This is how the cycle path should be everywhere”: that’s what her youngest son said when they first rode the new cycle path on Blumenstrasse. “He was totally over the moon there.” Julia Schnell is the mother of three children, now eight, nine and eleven, the family lives in Giesing and almost always cycles. “Going around town with kids is always difficult,” she says. She is all the happier about every bike path. How happy it was when, a few years ago, a bike path was marked on her way to kindergarten in the Werinherstraße railway underpass. “The wider the cycle path, the safer it is,” says Julia Schnell. A girl or boy quickly swerves to avoid a manhole cover. This can be very dangerous if a car or even a truck is overtaking close by.
The fact that something is moving forward in bicycle policy, says Julia Schnell, was seen on Rosenheimer Strasse. She still remembers the demonstrations years ago to draw attention to the dangers on the route between Rosenheimer Platz and Orleansstrasse. At that time, the city said: Can’t do anything. Then you thought again, and it worked. “It was just great,” says the mother.
Katharina Horn, spokeswoman for the Radentscheid, sees herself confirmed: There are also many people who have benefited from the traffic turnaround. She is all the more annoyed by recent statements by Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD), who clearly criticized the new cycle path decided by the city council on Elisenstrasse near the main train station, including improving the crossing at the Palace of Justice and Lenbachplatz: “Suddenly,” says Katharina Horn, “measures that the city council has decided on are presented as luxury cycle paths, or every single parking space is defended as if it were a matter of life and death.” If you want to significantly increase the proportion of bicycle traffic and also avoid road deaths, “then you can’t do it without more space for bicycle traffic, and thus without restricting stationary car traffic.”
Standing in front of the town hall, Andreas Schön, chairman of the ADFC bicycle club, praises the city: He sees highly motivated employees in the administration and well-established processes. With all the joy of the Radentscheid activists in the light in transport policy: the interim balance of the Radentscheid still casts many a shadow. Eight of the 65 projects desired by the city council were specifically decided, and a further eight have been presented to the public. 20 but are not even tackled by the administration. Andreas Schön calls the seven stages of a cycle path “milestones” in the administration. That is to be understood literally: “Big and heavy chunks”.