Berlin- Five new underground lines are to be planned quickly, the fees for residents’ parking permits are to be increased and the planning for closing the road gap between Marzahn and Köpenick is to be accelerated. It is also planned that the cable car to the Gardens of the World in Marzahn can be used with BVG tickets. Residential areas will be freed of through traffic with Kiezblocks, in Berlin local traffic a five- or ten-minute cycle will apply on all lines. The SPD, the Greens and the Left have agreed on this and many other measures during their coalition talks. The mobility topics that Red-Green-Red are to tackle in the coming years fill a colorful hodgepodge on 16 pages.
After almost two days of negotiations, Franziska Giffey (SPD), Bettina Jarasch (Greens) and Klaus Lederer (Left) presented their results on Friday evening at the Hotel Mercure Moa in Moabit. “Mobility was one of the tough chapters,” said Giffey. During the conversations that began on Wednesday evening, disagreements continued to emerge.
With the underground to Pankow church and to the airport BER
In the discussion about the expansion of the underground network, the Social Democrats have now prevailed. “We want to advance the expansion of the subway,” said Franziska Giffey. Cost-benefit studies are to be carried out for five projects. “We want to start planning on this basis,” she said. Finished plans, in turn, are important in order to apply for grants from the federal government that can cover up to 90 percent of the construction costs. Of course, it will be years before the tracks are ready. “But we have to start at some point,” says Giffey.
The SPD state chairwoman named the route extensions from Pankow to Pankow Kirche (line U2), from Krumme Lanke to Mexikoplatz (U3), from Rudow to BER airport, from Spandau town hall to Heerstraße Nord (both U7) and from Wittenau to Märkische Viertel ( U8). “The residents of the Märkisches Viertel have been promised an underground connection for 40 years,” said Giffey. “40,000 people would benefit,” she said.
In the Greens there was and is always criticism of the subway plans of the Social Democrats, who are now getting their way. In view of the scarce planning resources, Berlin should not get bogged down, they say. In contrast to the new subway tunnels on the outskirts of the city, the mobility transition could be better advanced with the construction of new tram routes in densely populated inner city areas.
Conservationists warn of clear cutting in the Wuhlheide
But the Berlin tram network should also grow, said left-wing politician Klaus Lederer on Friday evening after the coalition talks. During the legislative period that has now begun, for example, the announced routes to Ostkreuz, from the main train station to the Turmstrasse subway station (construction of which has already begun) or from Pankow to Weißensee will be completed, he said. Lederer emphasized that additional planning capacities would have to be created for this.
There is now also consensus among the party leaders that the preparations for the construction of the East Tangential Link, or TVO for short, should also be pushed ahead. “We want to accelerate the project and quickly stage it,” said left-wing politician Lederer on Friday evening. The plans for closing the road gap between Marzahn and Köpenick, which should relieve the pressure on neighboring residential areas in Biesdorf, have been going on for years, but have been changed again and again. Conservationists criticize the fact that the four-lane road construction in the Wuhlheide would have to fall a lot of trees. However, the new north-south connection in the east of Berlin is to have a wide cycle path and be accompanied by a “local transport bypass” in the form of an S-Bahn route along the Berlin outer ring – which has now been confirmed.
Fees for resident vignettes are “negligibly low”
An additional source of money is to be developed for the expansion of local transport – this has long been the consensus among the three parties. But what that will be in detail remains unclear. There was no talk of the Greens’ demand that all Berlin tourists should buy a ticket for train and bus on Friday – and certainly not of a city toll, as experts are calling for, but which was already viewed with skepticism in the previous Senate. We still have to agree on the third pillar of financing, which, in addition to tariff income and state subsidies, should give local transport scope for investments, said Green leader Bettina Jarasch on Friday evening.
Franziska Giffey mentioned the fees for resident parking permits as one possibility. At less than one euro per month (20.40 euros for two years), the price of the parking vignette is “vanishingly low”, according to the SPD politician. “That has to be adjusted.” This would generate additional income that should benefit local transport.
However, the tariff would have to be raised “with a sense of proportion and in a socially acceptable manner”, emphasized Giffey. She did not mention any concrete sums. “Many Berliners are dependent on their cars,” he said, and that should be taken into account. Working people who need their private motor vehicle shouldn’t be burdened too much, said Klaus Lederer.
The left-wing politician repeated a demand that the left had made several times – but was repeatedly rejected by Deutsche Bahn (DB). “The Senate is to enter into talks with the federal government to transfer the S-Bahn into Berlin state property,” said Lederer on Friday evening. Franziska Giffey was cautious, however. “We’ll talk about that later,” said the Social Democrat. You should not intervene in “running processes”. She apparently meant the award procedure for the S-Bahn lines on the light rail and in the north-south direction.
Planning for the new north-south S-Bahn line should continue
The mobility transition must also reach the outskirts of Berlin, emphasized Green leader Bettina Jarasch. “We need better connections on the outskirts and want to significantly improve connections to the surrounding area.” For several projects that are part of the i2030 expansion program, the plans are to be completed so that money can be applied for from the federal government. Jarasch mentioned the reconstruction of the main route of the Heidekrautbahn northeast of Berlin, the restart of the Siemensbahn from Jungfernheide to Gartenfeld, which was closed in 1980, the S-Bahn Spandau-Nauen and the extension of the S75 from Wartenberg to Schönerlinder Straße.
The Potsdam trunk line, which once ran through the southwest of Berlin via Potsdam to Griebnitzsee, is to become part of the Germany cycle, says Jarasch. Which means that the new Senate wants to decide the years of discussion with Brandenburg with a vote in favor of a new construction as a regular railway line. So far there have also been votes in Berlin for the construction of an S-Bahn on this connection.
There should also be movement in an inner-city S-Bahn project. It’s about building a second north-south S-Bahn tunnel. The preparations had stalled after fears had become loud that the tunnel construction could affect the memorial for the Sinti and Roma murdered under National Socialism. After the long debate, “we now want to get down to business,” said Bettina Jarasch on Friday evening. The memorial should be affected “as little as possible”. The planning variant 12h, in which one tunnel tube bypasses the Reichstag building to the west and the other to the east, should be pursued further.
According to the politician, additional park-and-ride spaces should also be created in the state of Brandenburg and in the outskirts. More express bus lines and an on-call bus system should complement Berlin’s local transport. Everywhere in Berlin a “capital city cycle” must apply, according to the Green Party politician Jarasch: “A five-minute cycle in densely built-up areas, a ten-minute cycle in less densely built-up areas.”
Climatic roads and traffic-calmed areas
Jarasch also spoke of a “traffic turnaround from below”. The Senate will support districts if they want to redesign neighborhood blocks to avoid through traffic, temporary play streets and traffic-calmed areas as well as streets by unsealing them into “climate streets”. The expansion of the cycle path network is to be accelerated – this also applies to the planned rapid cycle connections.
SPD woman Giffey named another project outside of Berlin city center, for which citizens and politicians from Marzahn-Hellersdorf had campaigned – among others the left-wing traffic politician Kristian Ronneburg. “We want to transfer the cable car to the Gardens of the World into the Berlin local transport network,” said Giffey. The currently privately operated route, on which no tickets from the Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg (VBB) are valid, over the Kienberg is important as a cross-connection. You will upgrade the Berlin local transport network. Critics, on the other hand, doubt that the cable car is really needed. But in the end the pressure in the district was just too strong.
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