Tyrolean community removed all zebra crossings

On the busy main road through Gerlos there are no longer any protective paths. Children and adults now have to find their own way across the street. The decision causes head shaking.

The Tyrolean municipality of Gerlos can now do without stripes. In the village of 798 people in the Zillertal there are no more zebra crossings. All five along the main road were deleted without replacement, even the one in front of the elementary school.

The mayor came to the decision that the protective routes were too dangerous and would not protect, reports ORF Tirol. There is a lack of understanding in the village itself.

But let’s start at the beginning: It all started with a request from the district authority. The community must have all protective routes checked. This was then done by a private company. However, the result was anything but gratifying, even “devastating”, as Mayor Andreas Haas explains. “It turned out that all five protective pathways tested do not correspond to the state of the art,” said Haas. After all, zebra crossings should be clearly marked so that they can be seen. According to the local boss, none of this would apply in Gerlos and it could not be remedied.

As a result, the end of the protective paths in the small village was sealed in the municipal council in December. The stripes have been gone for two months now and the resentment within the community has still not fizzled out. Haas must continue to persuade the residents. “If you explain to them that a protective path that does not correspond to the state of the art is actually much more dangerous than an abandoned protective path, then most of them also showed themselves to be reasonable,” the mayor is quoted as saying.

A local resident interviewed by ORF is not convinced by this argument. “It is extremely dangerous. The weather is fine now. But what about when it rains or in winter when it is already dark at 5 pm? Maybe still slippery or icy?”, Greta Duschk annoys.

In Gerlos, however, they don’t want to be left without a security concept. Now it is considered to build traffic islands, because a speed limit through the town is difficult, as Mayor Haas explains. . .

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