From the photo, you might think this was just an ordinary pedestrian and bicycle crossing on an ordinary city street leading from an ordinary strip of city park to another ordinary strip of city park (which you can’t see because it’s behind my back).

Well, it is just that, but the extraordinary thing is that for thirty-five years (counting from the year I moved to Frankfurt; others had been waiting longer) our city fathers (and mothers) steadfastly refused to put in a crossing for us, for fear it would cause a ripple in the sacred flow of automobile traffic.

For all those years it was impossible for any of us to cross here (at Friedberger Tor, near Hessendenkmal) without taking a huge detour and waiting for six (!) separate sets of traffic lights to change.

This crossing is a great improvement since it links two sections of the strip of park known as the Anlagenring, which circles the city center where the old city wall once stood — until Napoleon ordered it torn down. And for me the crossing is a big help because it is on the direct bicycle route from my home to the building where I teach.

My photo in this post is from 2005. I revised the text in 2019.

See more posts on Frankfurt am Main, Germany.