There will soon be something new in Heidelberg. The first draft is already available. Many drivers will not be happy about this.
Road users in Heidelberg can be happy about an innovation – or even annoyed. Because the implementation of the draft will certainly trigger one or the other debate. The reason: A traffic group is excluded.
Parkway Contest Winner
In the run-up to the innovation, an open space and traffic planning competition took place in 2022. Various designs were submitted for the Patrick-Henry-Village district in Heidelberg and then assessed. The winning design was a parkway in the city area.
A parkway stands for a special type of road, namely a wide road on which trucks and other heavy vehicles are prohibited. The road also goes through a park. In Heidelberg, the planned parkway should initially be freely accessible to all road users. However, there are limitations.
Highest ecological quality
Five different international offices took part in last year’s competition. The planning group Oberhausen won. A jury decided on their winning design on March 8th.
The planning group from North Rhine-Westphalia convinced with various points. In a press release, the city of Heidelberg particularly emphasizes the “interaction and the delicate networking between urban development, the adjacent green spaces and the multifunctional parkway”. In addition, it is emphasized that the Parkway “promises not only to do justice to its tasks as a traffic area, but also as an inner-city meeting place with high ecological qualities”. The sophisticated design positively set the group apart from its competitors.
Drivers have to back down
The draft by the Oberhausen planning group also stipulates that only a few trees need to be felled. Your parkway in Patrick-Henry-Village should also be open to all road users. However, drivers have to step back.
Because while local public transport will have its own lane, there will also be a specially marked bicycle lane. Cyclists always have the right of way over motorists. According to the jury, the traces could be separated even more for more security. At the same time, this would mean even more caution for cars. Because the safety of pedestrians and cyclists is the top priority in this parkway design.
