Less than a year after its first presentation, the cycling project with the catchy name “Highbike” is history again. As Stadtbaurat Benjamin Schneider announced at the most recent meeting of the city council, the planned cycle bridge over the intersection of Saalgasse/Mergentheimer Strasse/Leistenstrasse as a connection on the west side of the Löwenbrücke failed due to resistance from local residents. In a study, the feasibility of a separate pedestrian and bicycle bridge over the Main is to be examined.
Cyclists don’t feel safe on the Löwenbrücke, almost everyone uses the 1.50 meter narrow sidewalks on both sides and thus hinders pedestrians. In the 2020 local election campaign, most parties and groups therefore campaigned for their own bike and foot bridge on the north side of the Löwenbrücke.
Last summer, the municipal building department came up with its own proposal that would have done without the lengthy planning approval process required for a bridge: a wheel bridge up to 4.50 meters high over the intersection on the west side of the Löwenbrücke with three ramps into Saalgasse, the Mergentheimer Street and in the Leistenstraße with a direct connection to the cycle path in the direction of Höchberg.
Resistance to the project was palpable everywhere
“It makes no sense to push through this project against the citizenry,” emphasizes the building officer a year later. Of the 143 residents invited, only 25 attended a citizens’ information session last September, but they unanimously spoke out against “high bikes” mainly because of the long ramp required on the lower Leistenstraße.
The resistance was also felt at an SPD event on site and also reached other city councillors: “We are glad that this elevated road is off the table,” said Charlotte Schloßareck from the FDP/Bürgerforum parliamentary group, among others.
In the summer of 2019, Master’s students at the Würzburg-Schweinfurt University of Applied Sciences presented various concepts and ideas for a new foot and cycle bridge in the vicinity of the Löwenbrücke. They will be made available to the planning office, which, following a unanimous decision by the city council, is to be commissioned with a feasibility study later this year.
The Free State of Bavaria is covering 80 percent of the costs as part of its “Climate Bavaria Cycling Campaign”. At the end of February, the building department had already submitted an application for funding entitled “Bridges across the Main” to the Ministry of Transport.
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Adding to the lion bridge?
There was also another suggestion in the city council: “Instead of getting into any kind of thought processes for years, you should simply build on the Löwenbrücke. That would be a solution that is affordable and feasible,” said SPD parliamentary group leader Alexander Kolbow. According to city planning officer Benjamin Schneider, this is problematic for reasons of statics and monument protection: “The parapet of the bridge cannot absorb any tensile forces.”
CSU man Adolf Bauer had already proposed in spring 2020 to move bicycle traffic to the sidewalks of the Löwenbrücke and to attach a steel structure for pedestrians on both sides of the bridge.
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