When it comes to traffic, the Frankfurter Kummer are used to it.
With the beginning of the new week, however, there is a state of emergency.
Due to major construction work, no trains will run between Bad Vilbel and Frankfurt until September 4th.
And on the northern Mainkai no cars are allowed to drive until September 5th.
A lot of fun is to be wished to everyone who cannot look far in the summer holidays.
The S 6 is complicatedly replaced by buses;
Some regional trains end in Hanau.
Drivers who, after the demolition of Berliner Strasse, can only use the Mainkai to cross the city center from west to east and vice versa, will also suffer.
Both lockdowns are more related than it seems.
There are two variants of a traffic policy that wants to persuade drivers to change.
The S-Bahn will have its own tracks between Bad Vilbel and Frankfurt, which will increase its punctuality.
That's the way it should be: More attractive offers on the rails regularly lead to greater use.
At the Mainkai, the other way is being tried: politicians are making it difficult to get through in the vague hope that drivers would then, annoyed, give up driving.
That went wrong with the first blocking of the Main bank from 2019 to 2020.
The result was simply a shift in traffic with traffic jams primarily in densely built-up Sachsenhausen and on the Main bridges.
The alternative routes now presented by the city show the whole difficulty: drivers should avoid the already heavily used avenue ring, trucks should drive right through Sachsenhausen on the Mörfelder Landstraße.
One does not like to imagine it.
Frankfurt is not as "car-friendly" as it is often said.
The capacity of the road network is limited and lane after lane and street after street can not be closed to cars without damage, which, despite all the new bike lanes, still carry most of the traffic.
Now, in the summer, car traffic will not collapse because many have traveled.
In this respect, the recent blockade of the Main bank is not suitable for making a statement about what it would be like in autumn and winter.
With its risky course of discouraging the car through bottlenecks and high parking fees, the Roman coalition is playing into the hands of the continuing desire to work from home, which is reducing traffic somewhat.
But motorists don't give up that easily, they accept a lot as long as they have no alternative.
The better path to the "traffic turnaround" is therefore taken in the north of the city: work is being done there on a modern train service that will certainly find its customers.