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Editor:
Presscouncil City of Chemnitz
Pressrelease: 587

Renewal of the traffic lights on Leipziger Strasse

Aiming to improve road safety and speed up the 21 bus route - From tomorrow, the speed limit will be reduced to 50 km/h

Since the beginning of 2012, the city of Chemnitz has been implementing an EU funding programme to expand the city's traffic management system. The programme focuses primarily on measures to speed up local public transport. To increase traffic safety and speed up bus route 21 on Leipziger Straße, all traffic lights will be gradually replaced. These systems will be realised in a first phase:

  • Leipziger/Bornaer Straße,
  • Leipziger/Friedrich-Schlöffel-Straße,
  • Leipziger/Heidelberger Straße,
  • Leipziger/Donauwörther Straße.

The total costs for this amount to approx. 91,000 euros.

With the commissioning of the first two renewed traffic lights on Leipziger/Heidelberger Straße and Leipziger/Donauwörther Straße, the speed limit of 50 km/h within built-up areas will apply to all vehicles on the entire Leipziger Straße from tomorrow, 15 October 2014, in accordance with Section 3 of the German Road Traffic Regulations (StVO). In order to increase road users' awareness of this new regulation, the 60 km/h traffic signs will be made clearly visible to all drivers by reflector strips during the first few weeks. The other two traffic lights are to be renewed by the end of the month.

An increase above 50 km/h is only permitted on priority roads where pedestrian crossing traffic is safely guided by traffic signals and turning lanes are provided for left-turning vehicles. Since the new StVO and its administrative regulations came into force in September 2009, cycle lanes subject to mandatory use have also been prescribed. If the latter is not the case on Leipziger Straße, the current speed limit of 60 km/h can no longer be maintained.

Due to the accident situation, the accident commission of the city of Chemnitz also sees the reduction of the speed limit from 60 to 50 km/h as an essential measure to increase road safety. Up to 200 traffic accidents occur on Leipziger Strasse every year.

For the overall project with an estimated budget of 3.8 million euros, the European Union is providing grants from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) totalling 2.65 million euros.