Bars and restaurants and shops, from stationery to butchers, a striking number of bakeries.

In the middle the tram, cars are driving, cyclists are on the move.

There are parking spaces to the left and right.

There is usually a lot going on on the sidewalks, the district is lively.

Schweizer Strasse is something special in and for Frankfurt.

Because the buildings all around with their many Gründerzeit fronts are massive and yet elegant, because there the stationary retail trade, which is still fighting for survival, is still sending the signal that it can survive.

In summer, the tall trees along the street cast shade during the day, and visitors to the bars sit in the sidewalk gardens late into the night.

An ideal street or one that is ideal for Frankfurt?

What makes her attractive is also her disadvantage.

The disadvantage is to be remedied, and although the discussion is being held in Frankfurt, it is taking place in many other cities in a similar way.

Many want to be part of life along the Schweizer Strasse, and many want to use the road.

As everywhere in the urban space, not everyone can do this under the same conditions.

Car drivers have a structural advantage over cyclists, who have the least of the little space they have, but increasingly claim and need more.

A number of other roads have therefore already been redesigned to the detriment of motorists in favor of more justice among road users.

Bicycle lobby acts with pressure

City politicians are forced to act: because the bicycle lobby is largely extra-parliamentary, but acts with pressure, and also because air pollution control requirements must be met so that driving bans are not imposed.

It is almost tragic that the seemingly simple calculation that more space for cyclists and the reduction of space for passenger cars, including the elimination of parking spaces, lead to drivers switching to trains and buses does not work out.

Above all, it forces you to think.

Because that is as much a fact as the fact that cycling in the city is more fun and less dangerous if there is a defined space available for it: potential customers of shops and restaurants are sitting in cars.

If you can't make it, stay away.

And the increase in cycling does not automatically mean that local trade is boosted.

That, for example, the Oeder Weg in Frankfurt would flourish since it has been car-free and free of parking spaces: It does not look like it.

The city has launched a design competition for the redesign of Schweizer Strasse.

It would be nice if the plans preserved and increased the beauty of their subject.