Frankfurt Airport: Flying long-term parkers remain a nuisance
Neighbors of Frankfurt Airport still need patience: The city’s new concept for parking space takes a lot of time.
Frankfurt – Residents living near train stations with good airport connections will probably have to live with long-term parked cars belonging to air travelers for quite some time. The Frankfurt city government has now issued a report rejecting an early solution to the problem. After all, the concept that has been required since 2018 now seems to be finished.
“The magistrate has developed a parking space management concept for public parking spaces at S-Bahn stations with good airport connections,” the government explained in a recently published statement. However, she did not publish the concept itself. She only explains that the aim of the concept is to manage the parking space in the vicinity of train stations, where air travelers and other long-term parkers block the parking spaces.
Frankfurt Airport causes parking problems in the neighborhood
The concept had already been commissioned by the then coalition of CDU, SPD and Greens in 2018. There are problems with cars that are permanently parked by air travelers, especially in Niederrad and in the west of Frankfurt, for example in Schwanheim. In 2020, Klaus Oesterling (SPD), head of the transport department at the time, declared that the determination of needs was impossible due to the severe reduction in air traffic caused by Corona. Mobility department head Stefan Majer (Greens) is now responsible for this.
In principle, even parking for weeks is “covered by the common use of the street and in this respect there is no legal objection,” the magistrate now explains. According to the road traffic regulations, the city may only manage the parking space, i.e. set up parking ticket machines, if there is “proven high parking pressure”. “Due to the parking fees incurred, the public street space at S-Bahn stations conveniently located for the airport then loses its attractiveness compared to the original airport-related parking space offers that are subject to a fee,” explains the magistrate.
In the concept, all parking processes lasting more than two nights are now defined as “undesirable long-term parking processes”, with the exception of resident parking, of course. It doesn’t matter whether Frankfurt Airport is the reason for long-term parking or another reason. In order to prove the parking pressure, a survey is planned to determine whether this is really caused by long-term parkers. If a parking ticket and residents’ parking zone were then to be set up, “a considerable investment of time” would be necessary, also because “certain forms of citizen participation” would be necessary.
Long-term parkers in Frankfurt: Data, personnel and appointments are still missing
And even that can’t seem to start right away. The city of Frankfurt is currently in the process of implementing parking space management. According to the magistrate, this will initially take place in the 37 resident parking areas. The city had started with this in Bornheim in 2020. Once that’s done, resident parking will first be introduced in about 20 other zones that the local councils have requested. So far, this has not been possible because the city does not have enough traffic police officers to monitor it. For years, the traffic police have been leading, despite increased and punishable positions, under staff shortages because the pay is too unattractive.
The magistrate announced that the 20 zones should be introduced “according to the availability of resources” – but did not give a date for this either. The areas blocked by the long-term parkers traveling by plane could then only be examined and managed “in due course”. The government does not see the fact that it may still be a very, very long time until then as a disadvantage: “It can be assumed that the situation in air traffic will then have normalized to the extent that the application of the survey concept will provide reliable data. “
Incidentally, the (municipal) development company for the new Gateway Gardens business park right next to Frankfurt Airport is reacting quicker than the city itself. Since last year, the parking spaces on the streets there have been kept free of long-term parkers very effectively: sensors on the parking spaces immediately recognize when a vehicle extends the free parking time of one hour. An employee is then on site within minutes and issues a ticket. (Dennis Pfeiffer-Goldmann)