Category Archives: Parken

The Desperados of Schwachhausen

Bremen’s Transport Development Plan is again under attack from the car-friendly city brigade. Just a few weeks after it decided to increase the number of parking spaces on the controversial Parkallee cycle street, the local council in Schwachhausen has proposed to legalise rogue parking on three streets in the district. In every case, this involves vehicles using part of the pavement as a convenient way of being able to park on both sides of the street without blocking the road.

Bremen’s Transport Transition Alliance issued a statement condemning the proposal, accusing it of capitulating to illegal parking without considering how to combat it:

“The local council itself (referring to the extremely rare traffic control interventions) talked of a “state failure”. Their aspirations however, completely contradict the goals of a sustainable change in our transport situation, and are an expression of resignation in the face of the previous apparent inactivity of Bremen’s policy and administration regarding car parking”.

What makes the proposal even stranger is the fact that the local council has a progressive/left majority, with 11 members from the SPD, Greens and Die Linke, and 8 from the CDU and FDP from the right. In fact, both the Parkallee proposal and the move to legalise pavement parking were opposed by just one Green member. Continue reading The Desperados of Schwachhausen

“Platz Da!” Moves Up A Gear

The “Platz Da!” initiative has officially launched, as reported in the Weserkurier and on the telly.

“Platz Da! Bremen “is involving a growing number of Bremen citizens who are working together for a better cycling and walking infrastructure, and a comprehensive parking management system for the city. The campaign’s key demand is that the streets belong to all of us, not just the owners of parked cars, and is working with the Transport Transition Alliance , launched in January 2018 with a call for a city-wide management of car parking, and a genuine strategy for reducing space used by parked vehicles.

Continue reading “Platz Da!” Moves Up A Gear

Ralph Saxe – Transport Revolution In 2019?


Ralph Saxe

With Bremen’s state election looming next year, and the Greens riding high in the polls, there is a very real chance that they will form a strengthened half of any new coalition. With the two old parties declining in popularity, there is even the prospect of a Green-led government. With this in mind, we recently interviewed Ralph Saxe, transport spokesperson for the Bremen Greens, to see what they have in mind for the coming legislature.  Continue reading Ralph Saxe – Transport Revolution In 2019?

Three Steps Forward

Where now for the Bremen Bündnis für die Verkehrswende?

Last month’s packed Car Parking conference certainly generated significant media interest, with speaker Uta Bauer interviewed by the Weser Kurier, and Radio Bremen’s Buten un Binnen doing a major feature on the issue. (from 9min 34sec). You can read a full report of the conference here (google translated from German).

Continue reading Three Steps Forward

Kids or Cars?

The hilarious everyday experience of transport campaigns in Bremen (an extract)

Temporary play street: Turned down

– Application for cycle stands and bollards on pavements to keep the street entrance clear for emergency vehicles: Turned down– Illegal parking on the pavement: Silently tolerated by the authorities

– Application for residents’ parking: Under discussion

– Special slow zone (Begegnungszone) in front of the elementary school: Application coming up, because existing bans on parking are ignored

Continue reading Kids or Cars?

Parking Space to Cycle Space? Not In Bremen

With the recent publication of proposals for comprehensive parking management by Bremen’s Transport Transition coalition, there’s been considerable discussion in the city’s media about the problem of illegal parking. Little has been said about its direct impact on cycling in Bremen, despite the publication’s central point that proper management of car parking is a means to releasing road space for walking and cycling. Continue reading Parking Space to Cycle Space? Not In Bremen

Offener Brief an die Landesregierung Bremens gegen das Falschparken

It’s National Illegal Parking Week in Germany. As part of a series of actions in Bremen, the Bremen Alliance for A Transport Transition sent the following letter to members of the state government of the State of Bremen:

Dear Mayor of Bremen, and dear Bremen Senators,

This letter is a protestation. We strongly object to the official practice of your government to allow illegal car parking on Bremen’s pavements. This kind of car parking categorically transgresses the law and Road Traffic Regulations [Straßenverkehrsordnung]. Pavements are a public space for pedestrians. Pavements are not a private space for car parking.

The Bremer Senate has adopted the implementation plan of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN-CRPD), thereby binding Bremen’s government to its goals. Article 9 of the UN-CRPD commits the signatories to take appropriate measures to ensure to persons with disabilities access, on an equal basis with others, including the physical environment. These measures include the identification and elimination of obstacles and barriers to accessibility. Equal access includes access to spaces of public life and transport systems.

Personal mobility with a maximum of independence is supposed to be facilitated by the signatories (Article 20). Enabling personal mobility is a prerequisite to participation in public life.

These are the promises that the politicians and civic society organisations have signed up to and endorsed. Why is it possible that Bremen’s government does not promptly act on these promises of mobility free from barriers?  We demand that Bremen government officials implement the prevailing law and regulations.

We have identified you, Senator Mäurer, in your authority as Senator for City Affairs, to have the responsibility to ensure the orderly implementation of the UN-CRPD by the council. This means that the government, with immediate effect, should cease the deplorable practice that allows illegal car parking on pavements including the 5-metre junction rule.

We have noticed that the government have reinterpreted what they deem acceptable use of public space. Your government started to tolerate illegal car parking. This reinterpretation, however, does not take into account all users of public space. Your government’s reinterpretation is now restricting free movement on pavements. Yet, what is passing as acceptable use of pavements must be based on adopted policies of the government. Without appropriate signage, the parking of cars on pavements is illegal. A mobility free from barriers requires a minimum pavement width of two metres.
For many years citizens have informed the government of these illegalities. And often these incidents have been severe. The media also has amplified these voices: the negative impact of illegal car parking on children and mobility-impaired people, the loss of personal independence, public freedoms and equal access. The apparent leniency by your officials towards illegal car parking further exacerbates the situation: citizens are given the impression that the parking up of public space is acceptable.

The rigorous enforcement of illegal car parking has now become of paramount importance. The government should no longer tolerate dangerous and careless car parking. The government must equitably manage parking space and car parking.
In doing so, this would benefit Bremen’s citizenry on the whole: emergency services, deliveries, cycling, children, older people and people with impaired mobility.
The use of physical measures alone, such as bollards to prevent car parking, are not sufficient, and sometimes counterproductive: even more public space is wasted and new obstacles are created.  Furthermore, the gaps between bollards can too easily be re-interpreted as free space for parking.

The solutions to the challenge of cars in public space must be holistic.In sum, we ask you – as respectfully as we do forcefully – to notify your officials. The Bremen government must now enact policy and law and accordingly implement the UN-CRPD with immediate effect.

Yours faithfully

Bremer Alliance for Transport Transition (Bremen Friends of the Earth , VCD e.V., ADFC e.V. und FUSS e.V.)