Munich has some issues dealing with too many cars and illegal parking on the sidewalk is common.
The SPD mayor has the solution: change the law so that this rude habit becomes legal.
And what about pedestrians, people with wheelchair, strollers? I guess they’ll have to adapt.
Fuck cars!
Germans love a rule, love pea counting, and they will measure.
Your insane argument doesn’t quite work for me when the mutual benefit of the practice was to provide ample space for fire trucks and ambulances on the roads. This is not a matter of the city just not giving a shit. They weighed their options.
Another aspect that wasn’t touched upon in the article will also play into this: parking fines are a great way to get money into the city coffers. So it will probably pay off to get members of the Ordnungsamt - or the office of public order - who handle these things out in force armed with a tape measure and a camera and chi-ching for Munich’s revenue.
The “there will be more car fines” argument is directly disputed in the article. The city is making this change because people are mad about the current car fines. The “centerist” local goverment is siding with their far right on this matter.
You think car fines going up is a selling point the city goverment is going to abuse? If anything, if the amount of fines goes up the law will just be relaxed more and more until its just whats its clearly set out to be : no actual pedstrian rule at all.
I see your point. I was thinking about fining just the assholes who obstruct sidewalks beyond the tolerated minimum. I think there is a middle way to make that work and maybe even turn a profit. But that’s not a great additional argument from me. It might need a federal regulation change. They could introduce a hefty fine for parking in such a manner that a wheelchair user could not safely use the sidewalk as a result. One can dream.
I don’t follow your relaxed law logic. The law was not enforced before and would be more tightly enforced under this plan.
Nein peas.
This view weighs comfort of pedestrians against space for emergency vehicles and just takes it as granted that cars will and thus must be allowed to park there. It only asks “who do we discomfort with these cars” and not “can we stop discomforting people with all these cars”.
How about: no parking where there isn’t enough room for emergency vehicles left and leave the sidewalk to the fucking pedestrians that deserve not just a 1,5m tunnel of steel and concrete but a sidewalk that is comfortable to use.
Car owners shouldn’t be allowed to discomfort every pedestrian just because of their comfort of parking right in front of their house.
In principle, I agree with you. And do you know why hardly any city government can put this rigorous approach into practice? Because they will be voted out in the next election. Because car ownership is still high. Realpolitik applies here.