Category Archives: Parking

Creeping Parking Disease

We’ve got a short update on our story of the keycutter from Schwachhausen. As readers may recall, a key-cutting service on Wachmannstrasse was repeatedly parking its service vehicles right outside the shop, blocking the guiding system for visually-impaired tram users at the tram stop. At first the police didn’t recognise the problem, but when informed chose to do nothing. Continue reading Creeping Parking Disease

Bremen’s Parking Policy Battleground

Sielwall (left) 1980 and (right) 2017

Some cycling activists may be wondering why we’ve spent the last couple of months discussing the apparently boring subject of car parking. True enough, there are certainly sexier cycling themes to pursue in Bremen at the moment – the planned Cycling Quarter in the Neustadt, the Premium Route from Mahndorf to Bremen-Nord, that is under discussion, or the new cycling bridge over the Weser. But the place of parking in the traffic hierarchy can have a radical influence on the progress or otherwise of everyday cycling in Bremen. Continue reading Bremen’s Parking Policy Battleground

The Key Stone Cop Out

In Bremen-Schwachhausen, or to be precise, Wachmannstrasse, there is a key cutting shop. On most working days, you’ll see its yellow or white company car parked outside. Very normal, right? Well no. The car is actually parked at a tram stop, right on top of a guiding system where visually impaired people can orient themselves with their sticks on a ripple. In other words, it’s parked illegally.

Continue reading The Key Stone Cop Out

“The Law Is An Ass”, Said Alice.

The on-going local spat between citizen activists and the Bremen authorities in Neustadt took another twist last week, as the former tried their hand at legal parking, and the latter responded with the, umm, full weight of the law.

The Alice in Wonderland, parallel universe reality, reared its head in Biebricherstrasse, where last year the same group of citizens were punished for trying to calm local traffic. This time, they chose to park two cars legally by leaving them on the roadside, rather than on the pavement where all other cars illegally park.

Continue reading “The Law Is An Ass”, Said Alice.

Illegal parking – Unavoidable Evil or Misplaced Tolerance?

The explosion in private transport is a major problem for our cities. A growing number of cars are increasingly dominating our public space, pushing cyclists and pedestrians to the edge. Bremen is no different. However, unlike a number of other European cities, here the struggle for space is left to people on the ground, inevitably benefitting the strongest – car traffic.

Continue reading Illegal parking – Unavoidable Evil or Misplaced Tolerance?

The Parking Problem – New Series

Following on from our in-depth Cycle Streets posts, today we launch a new series focussing on that apparently boring, yet in practice extremely controversial theme, car parking. To start the series, we’ve dug out these short films from 1993 made by performance artist and carwalker Michael Hartmann. The title of the films, “Autoschreck”, roughly means “car shock”. German narration with English voice-over.

Continue reading The Parking Problem – New Series

Parkallee – No Stars For The Cunning Plan

Anyone who has been on a cycle tour of Bremen will know the city’s top attraction Der Stern (The Star). The Stern roundabout sits in the Schwachhausen district, Northeast of the city centre and has seen changes to its layout over the years. Now new plans are afoot. Continue reading Parkallee – No Stars For The Cunning Plan