Coffee, croissants, chaos.
Wednesday morning was supposed to be routine: catch the mayorโs interview on RTL, jot down a few notes, move on with life. Instead, our phones exploded. Why? Becauseโsomehowโasking for a map of paint on the road had morphed into a full-blown โcritical-infrastructure security threat.โ Terrorism! Blackouts! Sewer sabotage!
If youโre new here, hiโIโm Francesca from Zentrum fir Urban Gerechtegkeet (ZUG). Weโre the mildly stubborn bunch who counted 475 non-compliant zebra crossings in Luxembourg City. The City insists itโs only 37. Stalemate? Nope. We filed an FOI request in 2021, won in front of the CAD in 2022, then again at the Administrative Tribunal in 2024. The City appealed, and here we areโstill crossing streets and fingers.
Letโs bust the โcritical infrastructureโ myth โ๏ธ
We have never asked for sewer layouts, electricity cables, or the mayorโs Netflix password. Our FOI request is laser-focused on one map layer:
Pedestrian crossings, parking boxes next to them, and other paint you can see with your own eyeballs.
Thatโs it. No spies required. The idea that releasing this data would aid terrorism isโฆ creative, but also nonsense.
Fear sellsโbut safety matters more ๐ธ
Every day youโll find a fresh news blurb: car hits pedestrian here, SUV flips there. Our Safe Crossing project was born because we love our city and prefer not to get flattened while fetching pastries. Instead of talking about that, the radio discussion veered into cloak-and-dagger territory. (Plot twist: the real danger remains the poorly marked crossing outside your bakery.)
A tale of two victories nobody mentions ๐๐
โข 2022: The Commission dโAccรจs aux Documents says โGive them the map.โ
โข 2024: The Administrative Tribunal echoes, โSeriously, give them the map.โ
Yet the City is still appealing. Imagine a referee blowing the whistle twice and the other team just keeps dribbling. Welcome to our world.
โCome over, look for two hoursโno photos!โ ๐ท๐ซ
Yes, we met Mayor Polfer and Alderman Goldschmidt. No, we didnโt storm out in a huff. We sat in good faith, waited for the grand revealโฆ and got offered a two-hour, no-copies, lawyer-supervised peek at 37 highlighted crossings on paper.
Fun fact: checking 475 points in 120 minutes means 15 seconds per crossing. Even Usain Bolt couldnโt audit that.
Why this fight matters (hint: democracy) ๐ณ๏ธ
Public data should be publicโunless itโs genuinely sensitive. Luxembourgโs transparency law is clear on that. Classifying an ever-changing map as an โeternal draftโ just to keep it under wraps is the bureaucratic equivalent of โthe dog ate my homework.โ
If we let that slide, whatโs next? Budget spreadsheets? Air-quality sensors? Climate data? Opacity spreads faster than potholes.
Soโฆ what do we actually want? ๐ฏ
1. Publish the pedestrian-crossing layer.
2. Fix the dangerous crossingsโwhether itโs 37 or 475.
3. Stop using thriller-novel scare tactics. Paint isnโt classified.
Thatโs all. Release, repair, relax.
How you can help ๐
โข Share this post. The more voices, the harder it is to ignore.
โข Tell us your crossing horror stories. Photos, anecdotes, near-missesโsend them to info@zug.lu.
โข Stay tuned. Appeals court hearing is coming. Popcorn optional but recommended.
Final thought
Luxembourg is famous for chocolate, not cloak-and-dagger intrigue. Letโs keep it that way. We promise not to ask for the cityโs secret tunnelsโjust the map that shows where we can cross the street without getting run over.
See you on the (safe) side of the road!
โ
Francesca, Federico, Thorben & the entire ZUG crew