Berlin has committed to building 100 kilometers of express bike lanes (Radschnellverbindungen) in the next 5 years. Express lanes are the Lamborghinis of bike lanes: 4 meters wide, well-lit, and protected from both auto and pedestrian traffic.
Check it out, and try not to drool on your keyboard:
Plenty of space for pedestrians (Fußgänger), bike traffic (Radschnellverkehr), and cars (Kraftfahrzeuge). The numbers indicate the minimum width of each section.
The problem: at the moment, Berlin has approximately 0 kilometers of express bike lanes.
But, just as a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step, a network of Radschnellverbindungen begins with a plan.
Berlin’S Radschnellverbindungen Planning
Berlin certainly has a plan. In fact, they have 10 plans: one feasibility study for each of the proposed routes that the city intends to build in the next decade.
I know that we all have misgivings about Berlin’s ability to build infrastructure, but having 10 detailed plans is certainly better than having none.
And the city is not claiming that the express lanes will be built overnight and all at once. That has only been done once - in August 1961. You get a star if you recognize the Berlin Wall reference.
The routes will be built in three cascading phases: Phase 1 (construction to begin in 2023) includes routes 1,3 and 6. Phase 2 (planning began in 2019) includes routes 2,5,7,8 and 9 (construction to begin in 2024). Phase 3 includes 4 and 10 (construction to be concluded by 2025).
Route 5: Radschnellverbindung in Berlin Tiergarten-Landsberger allee
I dove into the planning documents to take a close look at Route 5. Route 5 moves through the city center, connecting to express lanes coming from the west at the far western end of the Tiergarten, through Alexanderplatz, and east into Lichtenberg.
The route through Mitte was divided into three sections. The blue streets in the image below are potential routes that were evaluated as part of the city’s feasibility study.
This section of Route 5 is split into three sections. The blue-lined streets were evaluated as part of the feasibility study.
Routes were evaluated based on existing traffic infrastructure (bike lanes, number of traffic lights, distance) as well as the number of people and the amount of office space in a given area.
For Section 1, the most-western part, the planners have a clear recommendation: directly through Tiergarten on Straße der 17 Juni.
Planners recommend expanding the existing bike lanes directly through the center of the Tiergarten.
The planners recommend this route despite frequent closures (due to festivals and protests) and the fact that there are not many people living and working directly along the route. There are in any case adequate alternatives in case of closure, for example the existing bike lane on Tiergartenstr. (9.2 above).
This being Berlin, there are naturally already people complaining that too much space will be taken away from pedestrians via this route. Roland Stimpel, chairman of the pedestrian association ‘Fuss e.v.’, said that ‘the express bike lanes are incompatible with Berlin’s Parks Law.’
To what extent these complaints will impact plans for this section remains, for now, unclear.
For Section 2, there is also a clear winner.
The red line runs straight through the Brandenburg Gate (which is pretty awesome) and down Unter den Linden and Karl-Liebknecht-Straße all the way to Alexanderplatz.
This route connects easily with the first section of the route, and according to the planners it’s both the shortest route and the one that has the most physical space, meaning that there is ample room for pedestrians, bikes, and cars. While there are lots of traffic lights, the plan would be to time the lights in favor of bikes and buses.
Section 3, beginning at Alexanderplatz and turning eastward towards Friedrichshain and Lichtenberg, is where things get tricky.
You’ll notice that the red line ends at Alexanderplatz. The planners could not agree on an optimal route in Section 3 because the most direct path, along Landsberger Allee, runs past the main entrance to the Klinikum im Friedrichshain hospital, which I have circled in red on the image above.
There is already a single-lane bike path along this street, but expanding it to an express lane could present serious challenges for ambulances, patients, and families as they enter and leave the hospital. Basically, you don’t want grandma getting flattened by a cyclist just after she checks out of the hospital after hip surgery.
Routes 9.1 and 9.2 are potential alternatives, but neither enables an efficient connection to the express lane that will run east from Landsberger Allee to Lichtenberg and Marzahn.
Wrapping up
This deep-dive has made it clear to me that building express bike lanes is not as easy I had hoped. The feasibility study alone for this relatively small section is 49 pages. Multiply that by several sections for this route, and then again for the other 9 routes. And then comes community input sessions, yet more planning…approvals…construction…my head is about to explode.
All we can do is wait and see - and, if the route is close to your home or work, participate in public information sessions. Want to deep-dive yourself? You can check out this feasibility study here.
Update: 11 November 2020
A first draft of the Berliner Radwegenetz (Berlin Bike Lanes) has been leaked to the press, and the initial reactions aren’t positive. In particular, the Association for Pedestrians is not thrilled that a number of bike routes - including the one we discussed in depth above - pass through what are now pedestrian-only zones.
The plan has not been officially published, and won’t be until early 2021. Until then, it will go through a series of negotiation phases between the districts and departments.
What will the final product be? Your guess is as good as mine!