Strasbourg/Stuttgart (dpa/lsw) - Transport Minister Winfried Hermann (Greens) sees movement in the flagship project for the railway line from Freiburg to Colmar in Alsace. The planning for the cross-border project is promising, as the head of department explained on Monday after a meeting in Strasbourg, according to his ministry.
The rail connection to Alsace via the Rhine has been debated for years. The total costs for this in Alsace are estimated at around 300 million euros. Local politicians from Germany and France only put pressure on better rail connections between the two countries in January.
After a meeting of the so-called political steering committee, Hermann said it was important to move forward quickly. Five variants are therefore examined. On the German side, according to the information, Deutsche Bahn checked at which points the previously single-track route of the Breisgau S-Bahn between Breisach and Freiburg had to be supplemented with a second track in sections. The steering committee with representatives from Germany and France should meet again in the summer, explained Hermann.
The Freiburg-Colmar connection with the reconstruction of a Rhine bridge near Breisach that was destroyed in the Second World War was explicitly mentioned as a priority project when Germany and France signed the Aachen Treaty of Friendship in 2019. The French head of state Emmanuel Macron and then Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) signed the contract at the time.
