Tempo 30 divides the green-black coalition in Darmstadt

• fromJens Joachim

  –

  shut down

–

The Darmstadt CDU chairman Paul Georg Wandrey ignores the coalition agreement concluded between the Greens and the CDU. Business association calls for the construction of an eastern bypass

The introduction of Tempo 30 on a section of the busy Kasinostraße, planned by the magistrate, is developing two and a half weeks before the local elections into a stress test for the coalition of the Greens and CDU, which has been in power since 2011. While the Greens refer to the coalition agreement concluded five years ago, in which it says that Tempo 30 should be set as the “standard speed” in the city and Tempo 30 zones should be expanded in order to improve the living conditions of the people living in the city or to increase road safety, the CDU chairman Paul Georg Wandrey apparently no longer feels bound by this passage in the coalition agreement.

Wandrey said on Tuesday evening at a digital panel discussion organized by the Darmstadt-Dieburg district association of the German Transport Club that the CDU was “against lowering the speed limit on main roads”. Hildegard Förster-Heldmann (Greens), who was also present at the discussion, initially left the obvious breach of the coalition agreement uncommented.

The Green Group chairmen Nicole Frölich and Yücel Akdeniz announced on Wednesday that at 30 km / h, the journey time on the one and a half kilometer section between the Rheinstrasse and the Rhönring would be a little more than a minute longer. “This minute should be worth the health of the residents: inside the Kasinostraße,” say Frölich and Akdeniz.

Meanwhile, the project of the magistrate has also met with criticism from the Uwiga electoral association represented in the city parliament, the Darmstadt voters ‘association (WGD), which is not represented in the city council, and the Association of Hessian Entrepreneurs’ Associations (VhU) in Darmstadt.

While Uwiga chairman Helmut Klett speaks of the fact that “the dream of all green-minded cyclists” will come true at 30 km / h on Kasinostraße, WGD chairman Falk Neumann regrets that the project disadvantages commuters,

VhU managing director Dirk Widuch announced, however, that traffic jams and noise would not be avoided in Darmstadt with Tempo 30 zones, “but only with new bypasses and the expansion of public transport services”.

–