After the city council of Burghausen – on the German side – had specified a one-way route on the bridge and a trial operation had been running for more than a year, a commuter from the Innviertel complained because he now had to take a detour from work home.
The plaintiff argues that the detour via the new Salzach bridge would incur additional costs for him and many other commuters. Three judges from the Administrative Court in Munich now looked at the old border bridge, which leads almost directly to Burghausen’s town square and from the middle can only be crossed on one side – in the direction of Germany. The city of Burghausen put up the one-way and prohibition signs in January 2021. A judgment will only be given after a hearing at the end of March, the presiding judge emphasized on Wednesday. In addition, the city should still provide documents.
One-way traffic calming
The one-way means “traffic calming, safety, noise reduction and improvement of the quality of stay on the town square, one of the most beautiful in Bavaria,” argued Burghausen Mayor Florian Schneider (SPD) in an interview with the APA. Although he had contacted the Austrian authorities in advance, there was no uniform regulation.
It is safer to cross the bridge on foot and by bicycle if cars only go in one direction. The lane is five meters wide, which is narrow. The one-way traffic will be “distributed more fairly”, said Schneider, also on the new Salzach bridge less than two kilometers away. On the alternative route on the Austrian side, there are of course two small bottlenecks where you have to drive more slowly. A citizens’ initiative was founded here to draw attention to the problem. Also on Wednesday people with protest signs came to the local inspection. You now have 80 percent more traffic on your street, said the plaintiff, Hannes Preishuber, to the APA. And: traffic calming alone is no reason to restrict the flow of traffic. A judge noted that.
Some complain, some don’t
“Those who now have more traffic complain; those who now have less are happy.” Incidentally, that’s the same in Burghausen, Schneider said pragmatically. “I assume that the order we have made is correct and that the city council will make the final decision on how to proceed,” said the mayor, who was “relaxed” about the whole thing. The Austrian plaintiff was also “cheerful” – the administrative court in Munich will decide at the end of the month who will prevail in the conflict over the one-way bridge.
Source: Nachrichten
