One-year extension?: For a Mainkai without cars

The urban planning Advisory Committee recommends the extension of the suspension of the Mainkais for at least another year. The Advisory body considers the addition of the “traffic experiment” a Chance to give to the “desire of many citizens to change and experiments” space. On for car traffic blocked the Northern Bank of the main is currently being observed, such as the Frankfurt appropriated the land in the city. With the extension of the blocking could be from the transport experiment, a “city in space experiment,” said the urban planning Advisory Board, in a recently published position paper, in which the panel of architects, urban, transport and open space planners with the Mainkai and the southern city centre, between Berlin street and main Bank employees.

Mechthild Harting

editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

F. A. Z.

show The time of the corona of a crisis, such as the public space, and other important “than ever before,” says the paper. This momentum should be used, according to the experts. On places and in the street, the people informally met, interacted, and could develop new formats.

For the Mainkai of the urban planning Advisory Board wants for the extended block to create one – if only temporary – design, to “staying qualities”. So he responds to the often expressed criticism of the head of the Traffic Department, Klaus Oesterling (SPD), this had closed in the summer of 2019 the Mainkai for car traffic, but no concept of how the street could be revived between the historical part of the city centre and the banks of the river main. Oesterling had always referred to the fact that the city is prescribed to him, no structural changes during the transport experiment would be accepted.

this Thursday the city Council will have a debate on the future of the Mainkais, whether the position paper of the urban planning Advisory Board will still have an influence on the debate, is unclear. The coalition factions of the CDU, the SPD and the Greens seem to be for weeks set: While the SPD and the greens want to extend the original one-year trial for a further twelve months, the CDU, the lifting of the ban. However, the Union is not advocating the transport to the same extent as prior to the attempt to admit, but calls to reduce the Mainkai on two lanes to build bike paths and a pace of 30 to introduce.

“Significantly higher level of Design”

The Urban planning Council has engaged in an inspection in mid-June, not only with the Mainkai, but with the streets and squares in the whole of the southern city centre. Sharp criticism, the panel on the design of the Berlin street in the amount of the theatre tunnel. Despite some innovations, the Council referred to the Area at the Carmelite monastery as a “spatial vulnerability in the city centre”. The car traffic dominate, pedestrians would steer clear of an important node. Lack of greening, “umwegige leadership of the foot – and cycle paths, fragmented surface designs”, and the car noise made this place “extremely unattractive”. The closure of the tunnel would, according to experts, the Chance of this room to remodel, so he could give the downtown an important impetus to the revival.

Overall, the urban design Advisory Board for the streets and squares in the southern part of downtown is a “significantly increased level of Design calls”. Currently, it does not correspond to the expectations of the population and the visitors. The needs of the pedestrian should be more and the public space, more greenery taken into account, the places of shade are necessary and water elements.