Table of Contents
bus lane
This time I strolled along Wilhelmstrasse out of town. According to the countless traffic signs, there is a bus lane there, which is also approved for taxis based on other traffic signs. But that obviously doesn't stop all other road users from using exactly this bus lane as well. A taxi driver who wanted to draw attention to his right of use by honking his horn was ignored, as was the city bus driver who swam with the normal traffic in the middle of the street and tried to get into the bus lane at least at the level of the next bus stop.
My tip to the responsible fellow citizens: if you equip the entire city with more and more traffic signs, colored lanes and other gadgets, whereby hardly anyone can understand the sense or use, you don't need to be surprised if everyone ends up doing what they want — in professional circles this is called over-regulation.
traffic axes
Streets such as Saarlandstrasse or Sontheimer Strasse are traffic axes that a city simply needs from a certain population, and especially when federal roads also run through the city. Last but not least, they serve through traffic and are also urban access roads that direct traffic into the city, distribute it and lead it out again. In particular, those traffics that serve to supply the city itself and are mostly denied with trucks of all sizes. In addition, there are waste disposal and local public transport services — some large cities also reinforce such transport axes with trams.
Such traffic axes are absolutely necessary for the emergency services, such as the fire brigade and Samaritans, who can use such traffic axes to get from one part of the city to the other more quickly and do not have to struggle through the traffic jams from one traffic-calmed zone to the other.
Even if Heilbronn is declared a traffic-calmed, car-free and cyclist-friendly city, these traffic axes must continue to be maintained and expanded as the number of inhabitants increases (see Saarlandstraße). A ring road, delivery drones or even underground distribution systems will probably not be an option for our city in the next 500 years.
It is therefore completely incomprehensible to me that the development or expansion of Saarlandstraße has been prevented for a good 50 years — which, among other things, also serves to open up the only hospital — or, as in the Heilbronner voice today, the Sontheimer Strasse wants to calm traffic.
Future
Today I was able to attend negotiations whose validity is supposed to extend beyond the year 2050, which gives me a bit to think about afterwards. At least it's not very likely that I'll see the end result myself. It is safe to say that everyone involved is future-oriented.
