Shared space in Bohmte

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The shared space in Bohmte shortly after its completion in June 2008
South side view (May 2009)

The Shared Space in Bohmte is a traffic facility in Bohmte , a municipality in the east of the Osnabrück district in Lower Saxony . It is the first implementation of a shared space in a location with a heavily frequented through-traffic and the first implementation within Germany. The latter favored considerable media coverage in Germany. The renovation was carried out as part of the infrastructure funding program Interreg North Sea Region Program of the European Union .

Process of remodeling

Problem

Since May 2008 there has been a large-scale implementation of the shared space concept in Bohmte (around 13,300 inhabitants), northeast of Osnabrück in Lower Saxony. Massive heavy-duty and through traffic due to the connection of the town to the federal highways 51 , 65 and 218 as well as the concentration of the motorized individual traffic generated by the residents on the historic Bremer Straße (Landesstraße 81) had in the previous years led to considerable noise emissions , pollution and capacity losses on the street and a reduction in the quality of life in the village.

Bremer Strasse - on it are the most important public buildings such as the two churches , the town hall and the train station as well as numerous retail outlets  - was loaded with around 12,600 vehicles per day, 1,000 of which were trucks . A new central connection was built, which connects the town center directly with the new driveway to the federal highway 51 and thus relieves the Bremer Straße somewhat, but it is not suitable for higher traffic loads. Because turning left at the mouth of the central connection in the town center is also only possible slowly, there is heavy traffic on the through traffic.

After Bohmte could not bring about any improvement through conventional countermeasures and a bypass was out of the question, the idea of shared space was taken up in 2004 . The municipality joined the infrastructure program Interreg North Sea Region Program of the European Union and together with six other municipalities in the Netherlands, England, Denmark and Belgium received financial support for the implementation of the shared space .

Political career

Course of the planning process

After the decision in favor of shared space , the planning process was designed. A local project steering group consisting of representatives from the community and the local economy was set up to coordinate the ongoing planning process. The project group was made responsible for day-to-day business and a planning team made up of transport planners , landscape architects and town planners carried out the urban planning process. The international team of experts from Friesland, which was responsible for adhering to the shared space concept, also played an accompanying role.

The beginning of the planning process was marked by numerous residents ' assemblies in which citizens, retailers and traders sorted their first thoughts. Site inspections were organized and excursions abroad to shared space systems that had already been implemented were organized. In the next planning step, open workshops were held under the coordination of the local project steering group, in which key concepts were formulated for the competition participants.

After the final evaluation of the previous planning results by further residents' assemblies, the municipality approached the State of Lower Saxony to coordinate responsibilities and receive funding. In view of the novel traffic concept, questions had to be clarified with regard to the validity of the road traffic regulations , the legal claims in the event of accidents and the responsibilities of traffic-related care such as winter service and the road cleaning obligation .

The North German state authority for road construction and traffic had difficulties in classifying the Bohmter shared space in the existing legislation and saw the funding application in contradiction to the municipal responsibility for local road land. In view of these contradictions, a plan approval procedure was dispensed with and an urban planning procedure was established instead. The project has now been approved and funded under numerous conditions. Bohmte is obliged to ensure road safety through winter maintenance , for example, to maintain the roadside alone and, if unsuccessful, to dismantle the shared space with his own financial means. Although the latter would mean the financial ruin of the community, the conditions were accepted so that the planning process could begin.

Design process

In the planning process, the town entrances were first marked. They form the boundary of the core zone, outside of which the pre-zones of the shared space were defined along the streets . They connect the historical local area with the local edge. The two zones can be characterized by means of the desired speeds. While a typical shared space speed of less than 30 kilometers per hour is expected in the core zone , the speed in the pre-zones is assumed to be 30 to 50 kilometers per hour. Both assumptions result from the considerations of the shared space .

The sub-centers and traffic focal points were defined in the planning as focal points of the shared space . This included the station forecourt and the central square as a traffic junction and town center. The sections between the focal points received a revision in the entire cross-section of the road . The standard profile provided for a reduction in the lane width to 5.5 meters, which provoked a more careful driving style. The new open space offers space for historical tree plantings, which were integrated into the plan as a one-sided row of linden trees . The pavement , paved with clinker stones, offers space for a wide variety of activities and can also be used by businesses and retailers.

Street lights are set up on the side opposite the trees , which, despite their contemporary design, blend in with the townscape . Between the trees and the lights, two-meter-wide stripes are discreetly marked with punctiform elements in the pavement for parallel parking spaces . These parking lanes are part of the design of the sidewalk and are assigned to it when not in use. The problem of parking , which has not been clearly clarified in the shared space, is to be evaluated by these measures.

In the traffic focal point on the central square, two intersections , which are passed by 12,000 vehicles every day, overlap . In this central local area, four design variants were proposed. Variant 1, preferred by the municipality and ultimately also implemented, provided for a single-lane roundabout , which could not compensate for the traffic load according to conventional calculation models. As a counter-argument, the roundabout in Drachten , which has already been implemented according to the ideas of the Shared Space , and which - also single-lane - accommodates 22,000 vehicles daily. Variant 2, on the other hand, provided for a square design in which as few separating lines as possible, such as indicated curbs , should be used as floor markings . Instead, recurring elements such as trees and lighting should provide orientation. Although the solution is the most convincing in terms of design quality and usability, the volume of traffic is too high to guarantee a smooth flow of traffic . Variant 3 expanded this variant to include the suggestion of a new building for business use, living or public facilities. Variant 4 also took up the idea of ​​the new building, but in this draft Leverner Strasse was to be swiveled to the north. However, this would result in only a few advantages in terms of urban development and open space planning. Overall, variant 1 has the advantage of all the others in that it is most likely to do justice to the traffic load, so this proposal was to be aimed for in the planning process. All designs followed the idea of ​​free lines of sight on buildings that define the townscape.

costs

As a result of the results of the public tender , the total costs of the shared space had risen significantly from the originally planned 1.6 million euros to around 2.1 million euros. This sum includes construction costs , land acquisition, engineering services and project costs such as public relations and personnel costs . The Bohmte municipality supported the project with around 1.5 million euros until the end of the project period in mid-2008. This partial financing was co-financed by the Municipal Transport Financing Act (377,000 euros), the district of Osnabrück (65,000 euros) and third-party funds (15,000 euros) such as the Sparkasse Osnabrück , so that the actual share of the municipality was around one million euros. The remaining amount of around half a million euros comes from the funding of the Interreg program.

Effects

From April to September 2009, the shared space in Bohmte was scientifically examined by the Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences under the direction of Wolfgang Bode from the competence center for traffic and logistics in the Weser-Ems region as part of a satisfaction analysis with accompanying traffic counts. Accordingly, the redesign of Bremer Strasse in connection with the construction of the central connection to the B 51 had only a minor impact on traffic; the volume of traffic on Bremer Strasse has decreased slightly. In the satisfaction analysis, the residents and businesspeople surveyed expressed themselves predominantly positively about the shared space and confirmed an increased quality of stay. In addition, there was an improved flow of traffic, which led to a noticeable reduction in noise and air pollution. However, the new transport concept in general is still viewed controversially. The traffic behavior of road users is based strongly on conventional behavioral patterns: The motor vehicles use the street, the pedestrians the sidewalk and the cyclists tend to use the sidewalk. In the course of the investigations, a slowdown in traffic was often observed, partly due to a hesitant driving style.

So far, no uniform effects on traffic safety can be proven in Bohmte. While in the years before the renovation (2004 to 2007) there were 5 to 11 accidents a year in the redesigned area, 16 accidents occurred in the shared space area in the first 11 months, but these were mainly due to collisions with street lights, for example when reversing out of parking spaces are. Before and after, however, most of these were minor accidents. The number of accidents with minor injuries has not decreased compared to previous years: there were two accidents with minor injuries in the first 11 months; there were no more in the years before the renovation. Accidents with seriously injured people were not recorded in the first few months; there was one accident with seriously injured people in the four years before the renovation. In general, it can be said that accidents with personal injury did not increase at all compared to the period before the shared space was implemented, but that the percentage fell sharply.

In addition to the quantifiable changes, subjective changes can also be determined. One resident reports on her impression that the social ties in the town have been strengthened by the new traffic concept. In addition, after the limited accessibility of the shops during the construction phase, the concerns of the retailers that the concept of the shared space could fail and lead to a loss of sales were allayed. The support and endorsement in the place has also led to the fact that the new development in the context of the new external image of the place is assessed more as promoting business. The dismantling of signs and traffic lights also relieves the community financially.

Web links

Documents

Web pages

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ EU project Shared Space - press review. Municipality of Bohmte, accessed April 17, 2009 .
  2. ↑ a b Home. Keuning Instituut, accessed April 1, 2009 .
  3. ↑ As of December 31, 2007
  4. ↑ Bohmter website, initial situation
  5. ↑ Final documentation, p. 11
  6. ↑ Netherlands: Emmen , Friesland , Haren ; England: Suffolk ; Denmark: Ejby ; Belgium: Ostend
  7. ↑ Bohmter website, planning process
  8. ↑ Final documentation, p. 24, graphic "Speeds"
  9. ↑ Final documentation, p. 45
  10. ↑ Final documentation, pp. 45, 51
  11. ↑ Bohmter website, planning procedure
  12. ↑ Bode, 2009. p. 15.
  13. ↑ Bode, 2009. p. 43.
  14. ↑ Bode, 2009. p. 44.
  15. ↑ Bode, 2009. p. 28.
  16. ↑ Bode, 2009. p. 30.
  17. ↑ Bode, 2009. p. 32.
  18. ↑ Bode, 2009. p. 34.
  19. ↑ Bohmte accident figures  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 218 kB), Osnabrück Police Station (as of August 17, 2009)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.udv.de  
  20. ↑ Bode, 2009. p. 40.
  21. ↑ Final documentation, p. 40
  22. ↑ Isabelle de Pommereau: Is a town safe without traffic lights? The Times of India , Mumbai September 13, 2008. Archived (PDF; 614 kB) on the Bohmter website.
  23. ↑ Shared Space : Partner publication. (No longer available online.) Keuning Instituut, p. 24 , formerly in the original ; Retrieved April 17, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.shared-space.org