Residents are angry

Local residents angry: “We won’t put up with it!”

Local resident Eckart Schneider believes that the half-sided road closure endangers safety.(Bild: Neuner Philipp)

There is a great deal of excitement in a Tyrolean housing estate: dozens of barrier posts with chains are making a fire zone in Rum near Innsbruck absurd. The neighbors vacillate between astonishment, concern and anger. The originator is the non-profit organization "Neue Heimat".

The lettering in huge letters at the entrance to a private road in Rum, which is used by two properties both as access to parking spaces and for emergency vehicles, cannot be overlooked: "Fire brigade zone".

Fire department zone "barricaded"
All the more surprising is the armada of posts, chains and padlocks that not only effectively prevent vehicles from parking, but also make it difficult for the police, ambulance service and fire department to get through in the event of an emergency. In this case, the posts would first have to be removed from their anchoring using triangular keys. With 50 or more posts spread over a length of around 100 meters, this is a time-consuming undertaking.

Residents are annoyed: "There is imminent danger!"
"Neue Heimat, which is owned by the City of Innsbruck and the Province of Tyrol, erected the barrier in the middle of the access road just over a year ago without prior notice and without the appropriate approval procedure," says local resident Eckart Schneider, sounding the alarm. Because all his reports of imminent danger to the municipality of Rum and Neue Heimat have so far been ignored or have come to nothing!

The zone is well protected from parked cars and trucks. So well that even emergency vehicles can hardly get through.(Bild: Neuner Philipp)

"Let's not put up with it!"
"The deliberate creation of a traffic obstruction was carried out without taking into account the resulting danger to road users. Some of the affected co-owners of the residential complexes on Kugelfangweg no longer want to put up with this deliberately negligent behavior on the part of Neue Heimat as the road owner and also the behavior on the part of the municipality by not intervening by the building authority, building, traffic and fire police," says Schneider and threatens to press charges.

Number "excessive" according to NHT
The "Krone" confronted NHT boss Markus Pollo with the matter. "There was a problem with cars and trucks from delivery services parked in the area," says Pollo. These could not be removed as easily as the bollards in the event of a fire. They were installed "in close coordination with the emergency services". "However, the property manager overshot the mark: The number of posts is excessive," says the NHT boss.

So now things are moving!