Berlin’s Interior Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) has criticized the increasing installation of bollards and the lack of coordination between the districts, the police and fire department. On Monday, in the Interior Committee of the House of Representatives, she accused some districts of taking a one-sided approach and of a lack of coordination when it came to expanding traffic-calmed zones.
“Something has to happen to reverse this,” said Spranger. “It is not acceptable for individual factions in the district councils to put people’s lives at risk without a vote because the bollards prevent us from getting to the emergency sites as we need to.”
Police, fire brigade and other security authorities must be able to get to the scene of the incident as quickly as possible. The reconstruction of the traffic areas must not be “to the detriment of the operational capability and availability of emergency personnel,” said the Interior Senator. In an emergency, police and fire brigade must get to the scene of the incident as quickly as possible.
The security authorities must be involved at an early stage in the planning and redesign of traffic areas. However, some districts are taking a one-sided approach. Fire Chief Karsten Homrighausen said: “Early involvement would be nice.”
Guidance systems for emergency journeys must be reprogrammed
Due to the remodeling of the traffic areas, the guidance systems for calculating emergency journeys would have to be reprogrammed, which takes time. The bollards would increase journey times, and it would also take time to remove the bollards. “Early involvement” by the districts “would be nice.”
Police President Barbara Slowik also complained about the actions of some districts that involve security authorities in the installation of bollards: “Our advice is not always followed. Each district acts differently.”
The police union (GdP) also commented. “It is legitimate for districts to decide to redesign traffic areas within the scope of their authority. But when ideology endangers human lives, the line has been crossed,” said GdP spokesman Bejnamin Jendro.
It cannot be that the police and fire service only find out about such modifications when they are stopped by an obstacle while driving to people in need. “We expect the Senate to fulfil its responsibility here and statutory regulations prescribethat the districts must first involve the police and fire brigade in any structural changes to public roads.”
