The website hystreet.com publishes the pedestrian frequency, i.e. the number of visitors in city centres, of 57 locations in Germany. Bonn is also listed with three measuring points. If one compares the numbers of the Poststrasse in the course of March and April, the increasingly strict corona measures become clear. In the week from 2 to 8 March, before the first corona recommendations were made in Germany and major events were cancelled, the total number of people counted was an estimated 187,816. By comparison, the number of passers-by in the week from 23 to 29 March, when the ban on contact was enforced in Germany, fell sharply to 43,452 people. If one compares the average daily values around noon, Hystreet figures show that only a fifth of the passers-by who visited the city centre before the restrictions were imposed were on the move.

However, a look at the numbers of the past week shows that with the shops open, more people are on the streets again: at the rush hours in the afternoon, at least half the daily average. On Poststraße, the measurements from 20 to 26 April show exactly 82,300 passers-by. Our editors could not get an estimate by the city council of Bonn. When asked about it by the GA, the spokesperson said that she had neither figures nor subjective impressions of the security service.

At the Kennedy Bridge in Bonn there is a counting station that registers the number of cyclists passing by. These results are published on the website eco-public.com. The data show a comparable trend to that of pedestrians in the city centre of Bonn. Even if the differences are not quite as serious for cyclists: From 2 to 8 March, 24,690 bicycles passed the counting station. From 23 March to 29 March there were only 21,080 bicycles. Last week, from 20 to 26 April, the number rose to 36,974 bicycles. This period is even higher than the comparable figure from the previous year (32,480 bicycles).

There is also more going on on the motorways in NRW: "The volume of traffic, also around Bonn, increased slightly last week due to the reopening of shops, but is still significantly below the levels before the corona crisis," explains Thomas Müther of the ADAC. During the week from 2 to 6 March, the Autoclub had recorded 4028 traffic jam reports with a total length of 6322 km, whereas from 23 to 27 March there were only 629 traffic jam reports with a total length of 572 km. From Monday to Friday last week, however, the number of reports rose again to 1373 and the total length to 1388 km. This is about one third of the reports and just over one fifth of the number of kilometres reported at the beginning of March.

This overall trend has also been observed by the Landesbetrieb Straßen NRW. On the last weekend in March, there was around 80 percent less traffic on the state's motorways than in the corresponding period last year. Over the Easter holidays, however, there was a little more traffic, but still around 70 percent less than usual. A spokeswoman for the state government confirmed in response to a GA inquiry that this traffic development was also applicable to the Bonn region.

Original text: Christine Bähr, Britta Röös

Translation: Mareike Graepel