Citizens' referendum Radentscheid Offenbach am Main

For safe bike lanes, better air, more quality of life and less noise - heading for a climate-neutral city!

With my signature I hereby request the implementation of a citizens' decision (Bürgerentscheid) in accordance with § 8b of the municipal code of Hesse. The City of Offenbach am Main is to be obliged, by means of the vote of its citizens, to implement, over the next five years, the following objectives in order to promote cycling as part of an overall concept of environmentally friendly mobility:

1. A consistent, well-established network of bike lanes

Within a year, a plan for a consistent, close-meshed route network will be established in order to create a bike-friendly Offenbach. In line with the recommendations for bike traffic facilities, all development measures are to be carried out in a way ensuring that, after five years, 90 percent of the population will be able to reach the main cycle paths within a radius of no more than 300 metres. The bike lane network must include schools. Transitions to designated express cycling routes within the city of Offenbach and between different cities in the Rhine-Main area will have to be provided.

2. Safe bike lanes on main and secondary streets

Every year, 5 km of bike lanes have to be built along the main streets, which, as one-way bike lanes with a width of 2.30 m, seamlessly connect at least two junctions. They will be protected structurally from traffic, stopping and parking by motor vehicles. This will be done without reducing the space available for pedestrians and public transport. In order to make cycling more fluid and safer, it is necessary to dismantle barriers, to lower kerbs and to provide longer traffic light periods for bicycles (green wave). At least 5 km of secondary streets will be upgraded annually as bike traffic streets or provided with bike lanes, which will have to be marked off from the rest of the street using coloured asphalt.

3. Making crossings and junctions safe

In the course of the next five years, the city administration has to work successively to ensure that all intersections, junctions and access points are redesigned in a way that ensures visibility for and on the bike traffic. Especially at intersections, cars and trucks should in future only be able to turn at a right angle. In addition, where main and secondary streets intersect, pavements and bike lanes to cross the secondary streets will be continued at the given level. The same applies to new installations and construction work on existing access points to properties. At traffic lights, motor vehicles/trucks turning right and cyclists or pedestrians going straight ahead are not to be permitted simultaneously accessing the street. At existing traffic light intersections, at least three circuits are to be set up accordingly each year and the routing is to be modified. It has to be checked whether existing traffic lights can be removed or their operating mode reduced.

4. Improving mobility for cyclists and pedestrians

In cooperation with the City of Frankfurt am Main and the District of Main-Kinzig, two bridges for pedestrians and cyclists are to be included in the planning: between Isenburg Castle and Fechenheim, and between Rumpenheim and Maintal. Within two years, "superblocks" (residential areas with restricted access) are to be created throughout the city in order to minimise all transit traffic and the risks of accidents for all participants in traffic by establishing one-way streets in all urban districts with dense residential structures.

5. Extensive expansion of the number of bicycle parking facilities

Within the next five years, at least 500 bike parking facilities have to be installed in front of all public buildings (e.g. city administration, schools, kindergartens), at traffic junctions (train stations / bus stops) and in front of shops and businesses throughout the entire city. Existing multi-storey car parks should also be included. The parking facilities are to be equipped with bike racks and, if possible, with a roof. A concept for cargo bikes has to be presented within two years and implemented within three years. Sufficient short-stay parking facilities and rental stations have to be included in the concept.

6. Supporting measures for the transformation of traffic

6.1 An annual written report on the implementation of the objectives and on the acquisition of funds for the promotion of ( bike) traffic is to be published. It will have to be discussed with particular involvement of the cyclists' associations in citizens' forums and political bodies.

6.2 Four times a year, all cycling infrastructure is checked for damage by the city. Damage reports including deadlines for repairing damages are made public online.

6.3 The activities of the traffic school for children and young people should be strengthened and improved.

6.4 Within the municipal department of public order, the city will immediately establish a bicycle squadron of the city police in order to make it easier to enforce the measures taken to improve cooperation between all participants in traffic.

6.5 The city will introduce a parking management system to finance the necessary measures to change the infrastructure. The plenary session "Radentscheid Offenbach" on July 28, 2020: unanimously adopted list of demands