"conceivable: Cycling & Grabenring"
From September 9 to October 11, 2019, the City of Aachen's Transport Planning and Mobility Department set up a pop-up room on the subject of cycling on the Grabenring in a store at Theaterplatz 7. Under the motto "conceivable - plannable - feasible", information was provided and discussed extensively in this forum. During the project period, over 700 citizens visited the pop-up room and contributed their ideas.
Background
The 2015 Clean Air Plan for the city of Aachen includes the creation of high-quality cycling connections between the outlying districts and the city center of Aachen as a specific measure. A cycling priority network designed accordingly by the city administration was approved by the Mobility Committee in September 2019 . The concept envisages the use of the 2.8 km long inner trench ring as a central cycle distribution ring to link the individual priority cycle routes.
The offer of a public participation scheme on the subject of cycling priority on the Grabenring goes back to a decision by the Mobility Committee in November 2017. At that time, the politicians commissioned the administration to carry out a preliminary investigation into the routing of cycle traffic on the Grabenring. Interested citizens are to be involved in this.
In the pop-up room, the different, sometimes competing demands on the use of this public space as well as solutions and the respective advantages and disadvantages were presented and discussed.
During the European Mobility Week, the Theaterplatz bypass in front of the restaurant was also closed to motorized individual traffic and temporary installations were installed to create a well-used, attractive urban space. In October 2019, the City of Aachen's planning committee asked the administration to implement the changed traffic routing as a permanent solution as quickly as possible. This is expected to take place in spring 2020.
Further steps
The evaluations from the input from citizens in the pop-up room as well as a detailed preliminary study on the options for routing cycle traffic on the Grabenring are to be presented to the Mobility Committee in spring 2020. The committee will then also discuss the concept for cycling on the Grabenring.
Acknowledgements
The pop-up space "Radverkehr & Grabenring" was funded as part of the #AachenMooVe!