The expansion of cycle paths in Berlin is still progressing slowly. Even around four and a half years after the introduction of the Mobility Act, only a fraction of the planned city-wide connections have been set up. This emerges from an evaluation of the traffic change initiative Changing Cities, which was presented on Tuesday.
By 2030, a huge priority network, cycle lanes and routes on all main roads for cycling are to be built in the capital over a length of 2,700 kilometers. But only 113 kilometers have been completed since 2018; only 4.2 percent of the target value.
The balance is even worse when it is taken into account whether the new structural standards for the width of the cycle paths have also been complied with. Only 27 kilometers and thus only one percent of the routes actually correspond to the specifications in the Mobility Act.
The cycle path plans for the coming years are almost impossible to manage
“We’ve only done a minimal part,” sums up Jens Steckel from Changing Cities. He warns of further disappointments. In the first few years after the Mobility Act was passed, the Senate did not set itself any ambitious goals.
However, the plans now envisage a “massively rising curve” that the staff in the Senate Transport Administration and the districts should not be able to cope with, he warns. “We don’t see how you want to implement the plan’s exponential increase.”
In addition to the already 80 positions, 270 more employees are needed to manage the workload. In order to become more efficient, it must finally be clearly regulated that the Senate Transport Administration is independently responsible for the planning and construction of cycle paths on main roads. This step is planned but not implemented.
There has been a change since Bettina Jarasch (Greens) took office. But there is still too little movement, said Ragnhild Sørensen from Changing Cities. “We perceive that something happened there, but there is still an incredible amount hanging.”
However, the activists see the danger that the growing political resistance in the Senate and districts will prevent the implementation of the traffic turnaround in Berlin as just as great. “Almost nothing has happened yet, but we can see the opponents of the traffic turnaround already forming and warning that too much has been done against car traffic,” states Jens Steckel.
Almost nothing has happened yet, but we can see the opponents of the traffic turnaround already forming and warning that too much has happened against car traffic.
jens steckel, Changing cities
With the CDU, FDP and SPD there is a group of parties who have declared that the routes implemented so far are too many, added Ragnhild Sørensen.
Traffic lanes were removed for 21 kilometers
The actual situation on the streets does not support this view, the activists argue. The Berlin road network for car traffic covers 5,342 kilometers. Only on 21.7 kilometers of it, only 0.4 percent of the network, lanes for motor vehicles have been omitted to set up a cycle path.
Overall, this corresponds to a converted area of 90,000 square meters. When the 16th construction phase of the A100 goes into operation at the end of 2024, the 110,000 square meters of road created there for car traffic alone will significantly exceed this area. “The little bit that has been taken away from car traffic by cycle lanes in recent years is overcompensated for,” said Steckel.
Against this background, too, the activists find the debate about the car-free Friedrichstrasse only partially helpful. “Given the size of the task ahead, the 600 meters is marginal,” said Steckel.
You have to make progress in many places in the Berlin city area at the same time. “It is to be regretted that people are struggling there.” However, this also applies to the critics of the pedestrian zone. It is a pointer, said Steckel, how quickly you get caught up in some places in the traffic turnaround.
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