The new Linz transport officer Bernhard Baier (VP) wants to create more information and transparency as well as more integration options for initiatives. This is one of the results of a discussion between the Deputy Mayor and the Linz cycling lobby on Wednesday. Both sides then spoke of a good and constructive discussion. We want to move forward together.
There is no dispute that the alternative forms of transport, above all cycling, still have some room for improvement in Linz. It was agreed that there must be a new impetus in order to achieve visible changes for cyclists as quickly as possible.
It will be necessary to put all major projects on the table and to find out the current status of implementation as to what this momentum should look like in concrete terms. According to Baier, the Radforum Linz should also be reactivated as a mobility forum Rad – based on the fact that traffic planning is now also called mobility planning.
“Be brave”
Thomas Hofer from the Radlobby Linz is convinced that the discussion platform as the basis for concrete improvements in cycling shouldn’t just have a different name, it also has to be different. After the conversation with Baier, however, he sees a willingness to remedy the lack of information that has existed here and there in the past. “We need action,” says Hofer. The traffic officer sees it that way too. You have to be courageous and be allowed to reconsider previous views and opinions on transport planning.
In a first step, not only the major projects such as the main cycle routes or the tiresome problem on the Nibelungen Bridge should be highlighted, the Linz cycle lobby should summarize their most important demands in a list of priorities, where one could quickly make a structural contribution to improvement.
The Linz Baier cycling lobby already communicated one point yesterday: The “rumble pavement” on the country road is one of them, for example. A “test strip” with cobblestones cut a little lower in Domgasse or Klosterstrasse was discussed in the municipal council in 2018, but was never set up. The cycling lobby’s call for smooth paving dates back to 2014.
Source: Nachrichten
