Christian Irmisch is disappointed. The Bamberg resident, who has worked for years at Siemens in Erlangen as an expert for traffic systems, has fought for years to give pedestrians and cyclists more space on Lange Strabe. "Quality of stay" was the magic word. Now the city council has dashed the hopes of some citizens that something would change quickly on this important downtown street.
Yet two weeks ago it looked quite different. With a narrow majority of seven to six votes, the building senate jumped over its shadow and decided that the 14 spa parking spaces should be dissolved following the results of the mediation process downtown and that the bike path on the south side should be moved to the street. Irmisch and his fellow campaigners cheered, the business community went to the barricades.
Now the role backwards again. The CSU’s motion for reconsideration, which the CSU believes was also necessary because Franz Pichler (CSU) voted against his group, has achieved its goal. With 24 to 17 votes those prevailed in the struggle for the Lange Strabe, which granted the fears of the business world of loss of sales the priority before the organization desires from the citizenry.
Among them was the CSU, whose chairman Helmut Muller called for a deceleration in changes to the traffic infrastructure. The CSU also focused on the wishes of local residents, who, according to Muller, do not want Lange Strabe to become a pure party mile. Opposition came from the ranks of the Greens and the SPD. Heinz Kuntke, who could see everything else in the city’s approach, except "excessive haste", spoke of a dangerous hullabaloo of the road users in the long road. The situation must be urgently improved: "From 14 parking lots the weal and woe of the business world does not depend."
At the closed front of those for the receipt of the parking lots use themselves, this changed however little. The "Fur Bamberg" faction was one of them, the FDP-BR faction, Daniela Reinfelder (CSU), but also Armin Andres (SPD), who, like Pichler, voted against his faction. A mediator role took over the parliamentary group of the free voters. Dieter Weinsheimer, who had voted in the building senate to narrow the street like the eye of a needle, now advocated that the results of the 2010 ideas workshop should at least serve as a frame of reference.
Building consultant Michael Ilk admittedly gave little hope that there would be much scope in the near future to actually increase the quality of stay in the street. "This decision is tantamount to a zero solution. I would not like to put up a planting bucket."
Approval triggered the turnaround in the city council, however, with the traders in the street. Pius Schiele, spokesman for the Lange Strasse community of interest, believes that short-term parking spaces are of great importance to his members. 95 percent were in favor of the parking spaces. Schiele: "We do not want more gastronomy, nor do we believe that safety will increase if the bike path is moved to the street."