Berlin – Unprepared – Berlin just isn’t prepared for an 1817 invention. This beautiful big city isn’t geared up for cycling.
There’s this eternal argument between cyclists and drivers. Some of the racing cyclists always like to ride on the road by the cars. They want to be perceived as equals, but mostly it looks as if they are a bit tired of life.
Then there are also political forces that are taking away more and more lanes on the roads from car drivers in order to give them to cyclists. This increases frustration on the one hand and aggressiveness also clearly increases.
The same on the sidewalks: pedestrians are afraid of cyclists speeding along them. They, in turn, complain that there are usually no bike lanes on cobblestone streets, and that cobblestones can be destructive to bicycles.
And then the backyards. We have 43 bicycles in our courtyard in Friedrichshain. There is almost no space left to put them down. Especially not dry. The residents of the ground floor apartments had extra fences erected – building a wall in Berlin’s backyard, so to speak – because otherwise their bikes would be right in front of the patio door.
Hardly anyone puts their bike in the basement in winter. They stand outside in wind and weather for months. Apparently, many don’t care that their bikes are rusting away. Bicycles are often disposable items. A flat share in the house is dissolved after three years and five bicycles remain in the yard.
Quite a lot of people forget their bikes at the lanterns in this city. Then someone quickly steals the front wheel and it’s just a tin ruin. But who should dispose of such “orphan bikes”?
After all, 1.5 million bicycle parking spaces are to be created at 5,400 train stations nationwide in the next few years.
But when I look into our backyard, I think that Berlin will soon be like Amsterdam. According to estimates, there are 880,000 bicycles for every 873,000 inhabitants.
In our backyard, too, it’s an eternal struggle for the few covered parking spaces. At least I had found a very practical solution this winter: I took my bike to a general repair in late autumn. Since there were major delivery problems – corona-related lack of material – it took a full three months before I was able to pick up the bike again. My bike was at the bike shop for three months. Nice and warm and dry.