Public transport in Bonn Fewer bus stops for faster public transport in Bonn?
Bonn · In order to speed up the delay-prone local traffic, Stadtwerke Bus and Rail (SWB) are introducing a new proposal. Fewer bus stops are also conceivable in order to speed up local traffic in Bonn.
In order to speed up the delay-prone local transport, the Stadtwerke Bus and Rail are introducing a new proposal: Managing director Anja Wenmakers offers that the SWB planning department will work out more ideas than before to improve reliability. "We have the capacities. The Stadtwerke could commission independent traffic reports just as well as the city administration," SWB Managing Director Anja Wenmakers told the GA. She emphasized that the city and SWB had, after all, been working together in a spirit of trust for decades.
However, the city administration does not consider such an approach possible. The roles of the city as client and the transport company as contractor are defined by law. Accordingly, the city is responsible for the design of the public transport service. "The preparation of such decisions by the council is indispensably incumbent on the administration and cannot be delegated to the company charged with providing the service", the press office explained when asked.
Background: Two years ago, the planning committee had commissioned the administration and transport companies to present line-specific analyses of which routes could be accelerated by which measures. The SWB delivered initial proposals fairly quickly. However, the planning office - currently seven positions are still vacant - needed months to prepare a draft on this basis.
An engineer for the traffic lights
Although, according to SWB, more than a dozen analyses have been provided to the city, the politicians have agreed to one legal submission that has been adopted in the meantime, according to which 14 parking spaces are to be cut in Kessenich at the corner of Eduard-Otto-Straße and Markusstraße in order to eliminate a bottleneck on line 631.
In addition, the city council decided to hire an engineer to optimise the city's traffic lights and four law enforcement officers to control parking bans.
In order to improve the punctuality of buses, the CDU city councillor Georg Schäfer thinks it would also be useful to check the number of bus stops to see if they are necessary. He makes this clear with an example in Buschdorf: Bus line 604 from Bornheim-Hersel to Ückesdorf Mitte which has eight stops on a distance of almost two kilometres within a loop between the corner of Otto-Hahn-Straße/Kölnstraße and Schlesienstraße/Kölnstraße. The Hoogland and Im Großen Garten stops are 160 metres apart. Stops were also added in the course of settlement areas such as the "Apple Garden". "Some of these could be dropped in the meantime, without hurting anyone." According to Schäfer, this would certainly benefit the punctuality of the often delayed line with long distances.
Wenmakers considers thinning out at suitable places to be worth considering, but refers to the city of Bonn, which is responsible for the matter.
Dense traffic causes delays
City vice spokesman Marc Hoffmann explained that the city council also has to decide on the number and standards of stops with the local transport plan. "Against the background of the transport and climate policy objectives for the expansion of public transport, the continuously increasing number of passengers, demographic change and urban density, attractive and fast access options to the public transport system will become increasingly important," Hoffmann announced. The city's local transport plan also sets targets for the development of the area by public transport, which must be met. "From the administration's point of view, a thinning out of the number of stops cannot therefore be advocated at present".
According to SWB spokesperson Veronika John, the local transport plan provides for a distance of 200 to 300 metres in the city centre, between 300 and 400 metres in the core periphery and between 400 and 800 metres outside. Line 604 will be delayed especially on sections of the line that are prone to traffic jams, such as Bornheimer Strasse. Problems with the reliability of buses and trains in the city and beyond are currently annoying many passengers. The SWB justifies unpunctuality and cancellations mainly with a nationwide staff shortage, which is to be constantly eliminated for the SWB route network by January, but also with traffic jams and slow-moving traffic, especially on the main roads.
After consulting the works council of SWB Bus und Bahn, the SPD in Bonn doubts that there will be sufficient personnel even after the turn of the year. It is calling for additional hiring, "because this is the only way to compensate for staff shortfalls", according to its deputy chairman, Alexander-Frank Paul, who is also chairman of the Bonn working group for employee issues in the SPD (AfA).
(Original text: Philipp Königs; Translation: Mareike Graepel)
