The Stuttgart 21 prepare undertaking shouldn’t be going based on plan, it’s too costly – and there are at all times conflicts between the undertaking companions.
Additional prices of billions of {dollars}, years of delays and a brand new dispute concerning the financing of the Stuttgart 21 prepare undertaking: In a letter of fireside to the chairman of the board of administrators of the occasion and the Federal Minister of Transport Volker Wissing (FDP), the minister of transport from Baden. -Württemberg, Winfried Hermann, accuses Deutsche Bahn of failing to finance To thiy the digitalization of the brand new hub. In the letter, the Green politician warns of the “hazard of complete failure” of the undertaking. “Spiegel” first reported.
The background to the dispute between the federal authorities, the railways and the state is the talk concerning the fast digitalization of the railways in Stuttgart. The so-called Digital Hub Stuttgart (DKS) is meant, amongst different issues, to extend the capability of the tunnel station and, in an additional step, to make it potential to make the S-Bahn within the Stuttgart space extra dependable and punctual. The implementation of this undertaking is unsure. The railway board first initiated the digital undertaking with the reservation of the committee. Hermann now needs the reservation eliminated on the subsequent assembly of the board of administrators on June 28.
The Stuttgart 21 undertaking represents not solely the development of a brand new principal prepare station within the nation’s capital, but additionally an entire reorganization of the Stuttgart prepare hub. New prepare stations are being constructed, resembling a brand new long-distance prepare station on the airport, dozens of kilometers of railway strains and tunnels, culverts and bridges. In addition to the Stuttgart 21, the Stuttgart-Ulm rail undertaking additionally contains the brand new development of the Wendlingen-Ulm high-speed line, which is able to open in 2022. The coronary heart of Stuttgart 21 is the brand new principal underground station, which, not like the earlier terminus station, can be a transit station.
The date of approval is unclear
It shouldn’t be but clear when this new channel will begin working. The railway introduced in March that Stuttgart’s present principal station will stay in operation till no less than 2026. This was supposed to get replaced by a brand new underground station in December 2025. The railway should resolve no less than 18 months earlier than the beginning of the brand new timetable what number of trains can run within the new underground station from December 2025. Deutsche Bahn introduced final week that it’ll inform the undertaking companions in June about its plans of utilizing Stuttgart 21.
At the start of May, the railway failed in a number of circumstances earlier than the executive court docket of Stuttgart, which aimed to drive the undertaking companions to contribute to the hundreds of thousands of further prices of Stuttgart 21. These at present quantity to six.5 billion euros and should be paid by the state railway on account of the choice. The choice shouldn’t be but legally binding. After the decide’s choice, the railways introduced that they may examine whether or not they may take motion towards this choice.
The group at present estimates the overall value of the undertaking at round 11 billion euros and has additionally put in a buffer of 500 million euros. However, the monetary settlement from 2009 solely regulates the distribution of prices as much as an estimated quantity of 4.5 billion euros. There have been repeated value will increase in recent times. The railway lately cited rising development prices as the rationale for this.