Annaberger Straße in Friesdorf Thousands of vehicles pass through forest illegally
FRIESDORF · The city council has been counting: Numerous cars and trucks use the closed part of Annaberger Straße. This annoys residents and the tenant of the Annaberger Hof.
There is a lot of traffic in Friesdorf. And that in a place where you wouldn't necessarily expect it, namely in the forest. This is confirmed by numbers which Alfred Giersberg, a member of the city council, collected as part of a measurement which he asked the city to carry out. "For over a year now, residents of Annaberger Straße have been complaining that more and more cars are using their streets to drive into the private forest path at the end," says the CDU man. The majority of them headed for the Annaberger Hof to go riding there.
You have to know: The forest path is owned by the city council on the first 200 meters, after that the path belongs to the forest owner, Alexander Graf von Westerholt. Passage is permitted to residents of house numbers 320, 324, 400 and 417, behind their houses only forest traffic, fire brigade and rescue services should have access. The Annaberger Hof with the house number 501 would therefore have to be approached from Ippendorf.
"But almost nobody does," said Giersberg, who relied on an objective count. As the city council announced on request, a radar camera had been installed on Annaberger Straße at house number 417 from 18 April to 5 May. "Here 8020 movements were measured, of which about 7800 were cars or trucks", Kristina Buchmiller of the Press Office explained. Uphill and downhill. The data had been forwarded to the police, because the city order service was not allowed to punish offenses of the flowing traffic. They are aware of the problem there. "Controls have taken place and will continue to take place," said press spokesman Michael Beyer. However, it is not a control focus for the police.
Bollards set up
For Jan Büsch, tenant of the Annaberger Hof, there’s another group to be highlighted in addition to the riders: "Many use the way over our property as a shortcut to and from Bonn when the Reuterstraße is congested." That's why he had bollards placed in front of his farm, which make the route less attractive. At the moment, however, they are broken; moreover, they do not prevent the approach from Godesberg. On purpose, actually: „We see ourselves as Friesdorfer, we have contacts there and many families from there are involved in our association.“ This is all also affecting the existence of the family business.
If necessary, the problem could be solved by the private owner of the path. In an interview with the GA, Graf von Westerholt said in advance that he did not want to cut off the company's lifeline. In addition, the lessor was a relative of his. "But it is a dedicated forest path for authorized residents," says the forest farmer. He had only granted a special permit. "The decisive factor is who absolutely needs access to the farm in order to maintain it. Barriers or bollards down in Friesdorf are difficult because of the fire brigade access.“
Von Westerholt is also in favour of regulation because he often observes dangerous situations between cyclists and motorists in the forest. Not only that the latter are mostly on the road illegally: On average, 22 per cent of road users drive faster than the permitted 25 kilometres per hour towards Reiterhof and 60.6 per cent towards Friesdorf, according to the measurement result. But: The device might also have detected cyclists going downhill.
For this weekend, when the Annaberg off-road days take place at the Reiterhof, Büsch and von Westerholt are once again asking those affected to be understanding. Afterwards, they announced, they wanted to sit down at a table together. Giersberg did not want to accept this and asked the police to check on the weekend: "The problem has not only existed since this week". The police left it open whether they would comply.
(Original text: Silke Elbern; Translation: Mareike Graepel)
