Frankfurt: New no-stop signs cause confusion
New no-parking signs in the home settlement in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen raise questions. An absolute stopping ban should apply here recently.
Frankfurt – “My husband looked out of the window and said: ‘What are they doing there?'” At the edge of the green strip on Unter den Eschen street, signs were recently dug in along the entire length, Cornelia Ahlendorf recalls.
She and her husband and the other neighbors in the home settlement in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen, like Karlheinz Neumann, were astonished when they later saw the signs that had been installed there: Absolutely no stopping should apply here. “People have always parked on the street settlement – there are no other parking spaces in their homeland,” says Neumann. However, the new signs clearly state: No stopping or parking. There are no arrows marked on the signs. It was therefore to be assumed that no one would be allowed to park their car on the entire street.
Luckily no one stuck to it
Clerk for new no-parking signs in Frankfurt on vacation
“Fortunately, nobody stuck to it,” says Karlheinz Neumann. He knew right away that things weren’t going right here. And called the citizen phone. There one: It is actually not true that parking is no longer allowed on the entire street. But the clerk in charge is on vacation. Just a few days later, after this newspaper had sent an inquiry to the road traffic department about the process, the signs were taped over with orange crosses, meaning they were invalidated.
It turned out that the signs are only intended to keep a small section, each about one and a half meters short, in front of three bicycle racks that were installed in former garbage can niches. The markings on the road are not yet in place everywhere, the signs came a few weeks too early, explains Ingmar Bolle, spokesman for the road traffic office. “Until the marking work has been carried out, the colleagues should temporarily deactivate the signs again.” Sometimes it happens that the columns “are not carried out and therefore there are somewhat too long breaks between the trades”, says Bolle. There are several companies at work.
Which can sometimes lead to confusion. Because the bike racks, which are located in a regular way along the street, have been there for many years. And nobody parks there, even without the markings and signs. The neighbors thought that the new signs had something to do with the wheel brackets.
Who pays for new no parking signs in Frankfurt and how much do they cost?
Why should it still be necessary for each individual niche to have its own no-parking sign with marking? What does that cost the taxpayer? Almost all streets named after trees now have four to six brand new signs per street. “Unter den Akazien” remains sign-free because parking is not on the edge of the green area, but on the sidewalk by the houses.
“A no-parking sign was arranged for each bay with bicycle parking spaces,” explains Michaela Kraft, head of the Office for Road Construction and Development (ASE). “These are installed in the one-way street direction at the beginning of the bay and the cross marked on the ground.”
The marking and signage of an area costs around 330 euros, i.e. Kraft. “In the Heimatsiedlung, 22 areas in front of bicycle parking spaces are signposted with no stopping. The costs therefore amount to a total of around 7,260 euros.” The bicycle racks have been in place since 2013, “so that no costs have arisen for them at the moment”. Was all this really necessary? “For me, it’s still a prankster,” says Karlheinz Neumann. It also bothers him that the residents were not informed, and the signs were not an issue in local advisory board 5 either. Residents who park in the streets are always given preferential treatment, “who know that they don’t park their car in front of the wheel brackets just to avoid scratches.” (Stefanie Wehr)
The parking situation is a central topic of local politics everywhere in Frankfurt. In the north end, for example, there is a dispute about the design of the Oeder Weg, because there are no parking spaces and the pressure is now increasing – as planned. Cyclists are now given more space there.