The CSU and the rail, not a conflict-free relationship. A paper available on Merkur.de shows: Bavaria has fallen far short of a promise about train stops.
Munich/Berlin – Joachim Herrmann (CSU) had lofty goals to announce in March 2015: he wanted to create 20 new train stations for the Free State in a “Bavarian station offensive” by train. Although Berlin was actually responsible for this on the financial side. At the time, Herrmann was Minister of the Interior and Transport in the CSU government under Horst Seehofer. “The environment will also benefit from the new plans,” he promised loudly a good eight years ago official notice. And Deutsche Bahn spoke of investments of 41 million euros each from the two partners by 2023.
The catch: now, by the target date, hardly any of the plans have been fully implemented. This emerges from the response of the Federal Ministry of Transport to a request from the Bavarian Left MP Nicole Gohlke, who Merkur.de from IPPEN.MEDIA available exclusively. Instead of 20 stations, two were actually opened, summed up the department of FDP Minister Volker Wissing. There was confirmation of this number from Bavaria’s state government. Others put the Ministry of Transport in Munich into perspective. It also left certain questions unanswered.
CSU and Bahn planned “station offensive” for Bavaria: Only two of 20 plans have been implemented so far
It is indisputable that after eight years the “Bavarian station offensive” has only created new train stops in Coburg-Beiersdorf and Würzburg-Heidingsfeld Ost. According to Wissing’s State Secretary Michael Theurer (FDP), the project in Würzburg was much more expensive than planned – and the federal government ultimately bore the lion’s share. There is talk of 14 million euros, 13.2 of them from federal funds.
For the rest of the planned stops, the information from Berlin and Munich sometimes differs. The Federal Ministry of Transport still wants Deutsche Bahn six Stations that are currently being planned have been named. Which would mean a loss of over 50 percent.
The counterparts in Munich, however, call on Merkur.de-Inquiry fifteen further planned train stations – with Straubing Hafen only one more to go on line in 2023. According to the State Ministry, nine more are to follow by 2027. In the case of five, the message from Munich is rather ominous: “Commissioning open”. Berlin didn’t even mention these five stations as “planned”. Apparently, the railways had not reported four more to Wissing’s ministry during the research for the answer to Gohlke.
Coburg-Beiersdorf, Würzburg-Heidingsfeld East | Coburg-Beiersdorf, Würzburg-Heidingsfeld East |
Straubing harbour | Straubing harbour |
Marktoberdorf North | Marktoberdorf North |
Bad Reichenhall North | Bad Reichenhall North |
Kaufbeuren Hook, Kaufbeuren Neugablonz | Kaufbeuren Hook, Kaufbeuren Neugablonz |
– | Aschaffenburg East, Mainschaff North, Lindau-Aeschach, Würzburg-Heidingsfeld West, Bischofswiesen-Winkl |
Bischofswiesen-Winkl | – |
– | Hergensweiler, Lindau-Oberreitnau, Schlachters, Weißensberg, Füssen West |
including Hof Mitte, Weiden, Weilheim | Bodenmais Süd, Ergolding, Hof Mitte, Weiden Nord, Weiden-Rehbühl, Weilheim Süd |
Sources: Response from the Federal Ministry of Transport to a Linke request, response from the Bavarian Ministry of Transport to a Merkur.de request. Status June/July 2023.
It was initially unclear how the differences came about. After all: If the information from the Bavarian Ministry of Transport is correct, the people in Aschaffenburg, Mainschaff and Lindau can also look forward to new train stations in comparatively concrete terms. It is clear that it criticizes the clearly missed expansion targets. “The sustainable turnaround in traffic will definitely not succeed in this way,” Gohlke complained Merkur.de.
Linke reprimands rail flop in Bavaria: “One CSU Minister of Transport after the other”
The left parliamentary group deputy also reprimanded more profound failures in Bavarian transport policy. Gohlke referred to one current study the “Allianz Pro Schiene”, according to which only 74.7 percent of Bavarians have a well-served bus stop within a maximum of 600 meters or a train station within a maximum of 1200 meters of their place of residence – the second worst value among the 16 federal states.
“Unfortunately, it’s foreseeable that nobody will be persuaded to switch to the train,” said Gohlke. The result was “simply insufficient”: “While one CSU Minister of Transport after another never tired of expanding the motorway network in Bavaria, the railway network was completely destroyed.”
Train stations for Bavaria: CSU promised “at least 30” new stations – eleven have been opened so far
A total of six projects from the original “Bavarian station offensive” have already been officially discontinued. Partly, as in Weilheim, because of resistance from the municipalities. The ministry of Christian Bernreiter (CSU) did not directly answer the question of what happened to the funds that were released. However, it named three new stops that were subsequently included in the planning: in Kaufbeuren-Neugablonz, Würzburg-Heidingsfeld West and Bischofswiesen-Winkl.
In a next step, around 20 other locations are to be examined and implemented in the long term as part of the Bavarian station development program.
However, apart from the “station offensive”, the state government’s station balance sheet does not read directly positively. By 2023, the number of train stations and stops in Bavaria will increase by “at least 30”, it said in 2015. At the request of Merkur.de The Ministry of Transport has now named a total of eleven new stations since 2015. At the same time, a spokesman said: “A further 50 new stations are being planned.” The Ministry did not name a time horizon for the opening this time.
For the CSU, the breakpoint expansion is not the only stalemate in terms of transport policy: the second trunk line in Munich is also causing problems for the state government in the year of the Bavarian elections. According to reports, Bernreiter’s predecessor Kerstin Schreyer (also CSU) had already sounded the alarm – but didn’t get through. (fn)
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