Traffic in Bonn Old City Ring open again since this Wednesday
Bonn · The city council has reopened the old city ring road to traffic. Since this Wednesday it is passable. But it will still take a while until the city ring is completely rebuilt.
The old city ring has been restored: As of this Wednesday, the streets Rathausgasse, Am Hof, Wesselstraße and Maximilianstraße have been reopened for motorised private traffic, the city announced. The work to restore the city ring road began on Monday afternoon and is expected to be completed by the end of next week. The city is thus implementing the council's decision of June 2020.
A spokeswoman explained that it took so long to implement the Council's decision of 18 June in practice. First of all, plans should have been drawn up and ordered according to traffic law. "Now marking work and changes to the signal systems are still pending. Everything will probably be ready by the end of next week," said a member of the press office staff.
As reported, the city council had revised a previous decision at the end of the legislative period at the instigation of the CDU, Bürger Bund Bonn (BBB) and FDP after controversial discussion: With this decision - supported and driven by the SPD and the Greens - the Wesselstraße was closed for cars and thus the old city ring road passing the central station was cut off. The passage from Kaiserstraße to the station was also cut off by the decision.
The BBB had accused the administration on Wednesday via press release of delaying the implementation of the latest decision. On 15 July, the district government had confirmed the renewed change in traffic routing as legally compliant, after Bonn's district mayor doubted the council's competence. The struggle for the city ring had been preceded by a test phase lasting months.
(Original text: Ruediger Franz / Translation: Mareike Graepel)
