The main street needs pedestrian space – Ptzingen

Two years ago, Ptzingen launched an architectural competition to redesign the main street, which runs more than a kilometer long through the city center and the lower village to the exit of the city towards Eichstetten. The most difficult part, which at the same time urgently needs new regulations, is the bottleneck at the beginning of the main street: from the traffic light intersection at Gasthaus Krone to just before the intersection with Rathausstrasse.

The current situation is unbearable

Both directions of the main road leave no space for pedestrians about 50 meters long. When the road boundaries were in place in the 1970s, they were made more than five meters wide to make room for motor traffic. However, the sidewalks on both sides were so narrow, about 50 meters long, that pedestrians on the northern side of the road leading to the traffic lights could only walk on both sides and on the other side along the inn with acrobatic movements. Distortions You are always at risk of being hit by passing vehicles. Sidewalks can never be used with strollers, walkers and wheelchairs. Even the traffic lights at Kroon Junction did not change the misery. The pedestrian green stages and subsequent stop switches are not long enough for pedestrians to completely pass through the bottleneck.

Pace 30 and track with steps

The need for action has long been seen in the community, but nothing has happened for years and decades. One of the main reasons: until 2017, the main road was classified as a country road and therefore a traffic route. The District Traffic Authority was able to put an end to any idea of ​​​​reducing car traffic in favor of pedestrians. It’s now been six years, and apart from the 30km/h speed limit, nothing has changed on the road itself. In order to provide additional pedestrian connectivity, a pedestrian walkway has now been created from Bergstrasse to the new car park of the Town Hall. This trail, which runs over public land and private property, still has a grade at the property boundaries so that walkers cannot use it.

Two options for one-way traffic

An architectural competition to redesign the high street was held in winter 2021/22. The winning design, selected in April 2022, comes from the Freiburg brothers Fabricgren and Fichtner. Providing a sidewalk with a width of no less than two meters for pedestrians. This means that the width of the road will not be enough to accommodate two lanes of oncoming traffic. The winning design therefore proposed that traffic should be allowed to travel in only one direction, alternately controlled by a traffic light system. The traffic lights will then be at the “Krone” corner on Gottenheimer Strasse – for the direction of travel to the city center – and at approximately the Rathausstrasse intersection for the direction of travel from the City Hall to the “Krone” intersection.

An alternative would be to designate the main street in the section between Rathausstrasse and the Krone intersection as a permanent one-way street. The access from the western part of the community to the city center must then be made from Gottenheimer Strasse over Bahnhofstrasse so that you can reach the main street via it or – depending on the destination – via Schulstrasse or Rathausstrasse. With this alternative, it would also be possible to designate Rathausstrasse as a one-way street, leading from Bahnhofstrasse to the main street.

Now the traffic is calculated

The local council has now unanimously commissioned Fichtner’s office to examine both options in terms of traffic technology for €25,740. The impacts on the surrounding street network, in particular Gottenheimer Strasse, Bahnhofstrasse, Rathausstrasse and Schulstrasse, should also be examined. There will also be a 24-hour traffic count at nine locations in October. This also includes more distant intersections, such as the roundabout at the entrance to the commercial area. The results of the traffic investigation should be available around February. The preferred alternative should then be proposed.