Bad news for Munich: The construction of the second main S-Bahn line will probably be delayed until 2037 and could be twice as expensive. In Bavaria one already feels reminded of the BER. But Minister of Transport Wissing deleted the topic from his appointment calendar at short notice.
It is one of the largest infrastructure projects in Germany - and is now set to become even more expensive: According to estimates by the Bavarian Ministry of Transport, the second main S-Bahn route through Munich's city center will be years later than planned. The project support in the ministry is now expected to cost up to 7.2 billion euros, said Minister Christian Bernreiter from the CSU. Commissioning could take until 2037.
The second main route is intended to defuse a bottleneck in Munich's local transport, because a disruption on the previous route - the busiest railway line in Europe - always has consequences for the entire S-Bahn network. Munich's Mayor Dieter Reiter was "extremely disappointed". He hopes that the federal government, the Free State and Deutsche Bahn will do everything in their power to ensure that the project "does not become a second Berlin Airport (BER)".
"We expect Deutsche Bahn to disclose both its cost estimate and its schedule," said CSU politician Bernreiter, referring to the long-silent sponsor. The last time the start time was 2028 was in the room. The planning for this has been going on for years: the federal and state governments had already agreed on joint financing in October 2016, according to which the federal government would assume 60 percent of the eligible construction costs. It was based on the total costs of 3.85 billion euros calculated by Deutsche Bahn at the time.
There should now be a need for discussion about the assumption of the additional costs. Bernreiter was annoyed that an appointment with Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing that had been planned for Thursday for months was canceled at short notice by the FDP. "That's a very, very bad style for me, and I can say: Mr. Wissing backs down."
Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder asked for the appointment with Wissing in March, emphasized Bernreiter, according to BR. It is "incredible" that as Prime Minister of a large federal state you have to wait three and a half months for an appointment. On Wednesday evening, the Federal Transport Minister canceled this "long-awaited" meeting "without giving reasons" and immediately noted that he would not be able to make an appointment in Bavaria in the near future, criticized Bernreiter. "I can only call to Berlin: Sir, Wissing, it's your turn now!"
Only about a week ago, Wissing made the expansion of the entire German rail network a top priority and founded an "acceleration commission". "I expect that in the future we will be able to set the clock by the train again," the transport minister had promised when presenting his concept for a "high-performance network".
