Long before I got interested in how our urban places are put together I read about the city of Freiburg in southwest Germany and more specifically, the neighbourhood of Vauban which was built as a low-car eco-development.
A few weeks ago I finally managed to visit as we’d picked Freiburg im Breisgau (to give the city its full name) as a camping stop on the homeward leg of our summer holiday. I’ll write about the city another time, but for this week, let’s have a look around Vauban. The neighbourhood is to the south of the city, about 3km southwest of the city centre.
To get there, my son and I hired a couple of bikes from Donkey Republic, a system I used last year in Copenhagen and Malmö which conveniently had a virtual docking station at our campsite on the edge of the Waldsee neighbourhood to the east, arriving at about 11am on a Friday morning.
We cycled about 5.5km along a range of roads and streets which I’ll cover in another post. We entered Vauban via the main street, Vaubanallee which runs roughly east-west through the centre of the neighbourhood.
Vaubanallee does several things. Along the centre, there are a pair of tram tracks providing a connection to the city – they are actually one line because the route loops at the western end of the neighbourhood forming an interchange with a little bus station. The speed limit is 30kph throughout.
The Ranty Highwayman: Suburban Serenity
Long before I got interested in how our urban places are put together I read about the city of Freiburg in southwest Germany and more specifically, the neighbourhood of Vauban which was built as a low-car eco-development. A few weeks ago I finally managed to visit as we’d picked Freiburg im Breisgau (to give the… [Read More]
