Thu, 24 Jun 2010

Life ebbing away from the “new heart of Europe”?

Mega building projects, intended to enhance the prestige of those who plan them as much as anything else, can be found all over the world. That such projects invariably turn out to be controversial if they ride roughshod over the concerns of local people, particularly when there is some doubt about their viability, has been illustrated once again in the proposal by German Railways (DB) to completely remodel the central railway station in the German city of Stuttgart, putting it underground and building a new commercial and residential quarter where the station once used to stand. NNA Correspondent Cornelie Unger-Leistner explains.

STUTTGART (NNA) - “Europe is building stations again,” DB says enthusiastically in its customer magazine “mobil”. Lyon, Berlin, Liege with their spectacular new station buildings designed by well-known architects had allowed “station architecture with its airy designs to soar directly from the nineteenth into the twenty-first century,” “mobil” continues breathlessly.

It was in this spirit that DB earlier this year announced the construction start of its “Stuttgart 21” project – with the difference that a significant number of Stuttgart inhabitants clearly see this project not so much as a “cathedral of mobility” (“mobil”) but as a black hole about to swallow billions of their tax euros for questionable benefit.

Towards the end of the former East Germany, its people began resisting the regime by holding regular Monday demonstrations in defiance of the authorities. The people in Stuttgart have started using the same tactic to stop this controversial project by German Railways.

“This Tower of Babel, this underground labyrinth will fail – I am convinced of that. The only question is how soon,” Prof. Dieter Bodack, transport specialist, tells about 4000 Stuttgart citizens. They have gathered at the north entrance of the station, as they do every Monday, to protest against this mega project. They have been driven to take this action by the fact that “Stuttgart 21” is being realised despite a huge increase of votes for opponents of the project in the city assembly last year. The Greens have become the largest group with 25.3 percent.

Calling for an independent review of the project, the transport specialist calls on the demonstrators to make their views known to their representatives. “Stuttgart 21” was approved by the city assembly and regional parliament and in his view it should also be they who now put a stop to it.

According to Bodack, the prestigious project, which according to DB will turn the run-down station quarter into the “new heart of Europe”, has all the hallmarks of a bad joke. As evidence, the expert cites the routing of single tracks, a way of doing things which belongs in the last century, junctions which will not be passable without delays, ecologically indefensible gradients and a connection volume which is much too small with only eight tracks. And a special dispensation would be needed to lay inclined tracks in the station – a solution which has not so far been used in Germany and which is notorious in other countries as a cause of accidents.

The members of the assembly and parliament had something completely different in mind when they approved “Stuttgart 21”: quality improvements, routing leading to better timekeeping, and better regional links. “It was never planned like this,” says Bodack. The planned construction period of 10 years was an illusion, he adds, the costs of approximately four billion euros as well. Ten billion would be a more realistic figure, he concludes, also taking into account all the tunnels that would need to be built.

A much more sensible alternative would be simply to completely modernise the current station, but that would mean a smaller contribution from public funds, for DB itself is responsible for modernisation projects. At present, German Railways, the federal government with the region and the city, and the airport are bearing approximately one third of costs each.

“How can Stuttgart afford that?“ asks the journalist Prof. Hannelore Schlaffer. She thinks a feeling of inferiority among local and regional politicians has been a driving force of the project: from provincial town to cosmopolitan city is their slogan. „Stuttgart is a modern city with a wealth of culture, it does not need such a project,” she emphasises to the applause of the demonstrators.

A whole new commercial and residential quarter is to be built on the site of the former station. The fear is that during the period that the new underground station is built the popular Schlossgarten city centre park will, for the foreseeable future, be turned literally into a big hole. Hundreds of ancient trees would have to be felled. Environmentalists have already announced that they will chain themselves to the trees if it ever comes to that.

Although the start of construction was officially announced by DB and local and regional politicians in April, the members of the “Stay on top” initiative, the motto of the “Stuttgart 21” opponents, are optimistic that they can still stop the project.

In this they might receive backing from the federal parliament in Berlin. The transport committee of the lower house became alarmed in March when it discovered that urgent track work was having to be delayed for lack of funds. The Greens chairman of the committee demanded a moratorium on all mega projects like “Stuttgart 21” because they were taking up scarce resources which were needed more urgently elsewhere.

There was a similar response from consumer organisations who have demanded a completely new rail policy. Year after year billions of taxes were being wasted because the money was not going to where it was needed but where it would bring the greatest prestige, they say. Rail passengers were forced to suffer the result with overcrowded lines and daily delays.

The opponents of “Stuttgart 21” with their regular and sustained protest might well become an example of how people themselves can bring about the cancellation of such mega projects which, given empty public coffers, are no longer seen as appropriate. At a time when local councils are having to close theatres or swimming pools because they no longer know how to keep their continuously rising debts under control, such a movement has significant public resonance.

END/nna/ung/cva

Item: 100624-02EN Date: 24 June 2010

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