Berlin – The new Berlin mobility senator Bettina Jarasch wants to ensure that the cycle network grows faster than before. The Senate will set up a project unit that wants to advance the expansion together with interested districts, said the Green politician in an interview with the Berliner Zeitung. This part of the hundred-day program, which the new Senate officially presented on Sunday, met with positive reactions. Ragnhild Sørensen, spokeswoman for the Changing Cities association, welcomed the initiative. “But we’re sticking to it: It’s not declarations of intent that count, only concrete implementation on the street,” she said.
There are enough ideas, goals and regulations to advance the expansion of Berlin’s cycling network. But the criticism is that there was a problem with the implementation. The Mobility Act stipulates that all of Berlin’s main thoroughfares are equipped with cycle lanes, which are protected from cars with bollards, for example. But by no means every district office is trying to implement the regulation that has been in force nationwide since 2018. It often happens that the district and central administration push the cases back and forth. “Ping-pong” is what the experts call it.
At the end of last year, the plans were specified in the Berlin cycling plan. The goal is a 2,400-kilometer cycle network, it said. The core is the priority network with 850 kilometers of well-developed paths – 2.50 meters wide in each direction.
“We’ve covered 130 kilometers in the past five years”
There is another reason why the implementation of the plans should now be accelerated: the new red-green-red coalition agreement. The state government has “a lot planned, to put it bluntly,” said Bettina Jarasch in an interview. “In the next five years we want to set up a bicycle priority network on the most important connections in Berlin and also build cycle paths on the main roads. That would be a total of around 280 kilometers per year,” said the senator. “For comparison: in the past five years we’ve covered 130 kilometers.”
Under the current conditions, however, the ambitious program for the next five years cannot be managed, the Greens politician admitted. That is why the Senate will go “new paths”. “Together with the districts, we will set up a project unit for the expansion of the cycling network,” announced Jarasch. “Instead of sending files and plans back and forth as before, everyone involved sits down at a table and works through one project after the other together. I am convinced that this will make us faster.”
Bettina Jarasch would also like to set up a comparable work unit for expanding the special bus lanes. “The senate administration is offering the districts a cooperation in order to implement individual bus lanes that have already been arranged more quickly,” says the hundred-day program. As with the cycle lanes, districts are complaining about financing problems with many bus lanes – the Senate could actually help and step in here, it was said internally. However, the question is how the central administration wants to handle the additional, sometimes very small-scale tasks. The fact that there should be two separate units for bike lanes and bus lanes is also viewed critically. Rather, what is needed is integrated planning – so that in the end, as is so often the case, the interests of local transport users are not neglected, it was said.
District Councilor: “I’m happy about the initiative!”
The reactions of cycling fans are benevolent. The General German Bicycle Club (ADFC) welcomed Jarasch’s announcement. “At the same time, we appeal to the planned new project unit to structure itself clearly. It must be publicly recognizable who is responsible, who does what and by when,” said Lisa Feitsch, spokeswoman for the Berlin state association, on Monday. “This is the only way to put the necessary pressure on those districts that have so far been unwilling to implement the Mobility Act in order to make Berlin a livable, traffic-safe city for everyone.”
Accelerating planning processes and capacities increases the chances that the Mobility Act can be implemented by 2030, praised Ragnhild Sørensen from Changing Cities. “From a pragmatic point of view, it makes perfect sense to go ahead with ‘willing’ districts. In fact, the question arises as to how it could be that some districts apparently have no interest in implementing the applicable law. Because the Mobility Act naturally applies throughout the city.”
New counter hit almost 800,000 times
The Senate and districts should work much more closely together in order to achieve the goals of the Mobility Act across Berlin more quickly and consistently, said Saskia Ellenbeck, the city councilor responsible for roads in Tempelhof-Schoeneberg. “A leading role for the Senate administration can be of great support. Tempelhof-Schöneberg is open and very positive about close cooperation. I’m happy about the advance!”
However, a current comparison of the data obtained from the Senate’s bicycle counting stations shows a decline in bicycle traffic in these areas over the past year. At the 16 counting points that were in operation in 2020 and 2021, the volume fell by 10.5 percent. The sensors on the Jannowitzbrücke in Mitte registered 16 percent less bicycle traffic. Bicycle traffic fell by 14.5 percent at the Alberichstrasse counting point in Biesdorf, by 12.3 percent on Monumentenstrasse in Schöneberg and by 11.6 percent on Berliner Strasse in Pankow.
The bicycle barometer, which has been in existence since the end of July and counts the westbound bicycle traffic on the north side of the Straße des 17. Juni, struck more than 791,000 times.
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