Zahes wrangling over rail planning in the bamberg district

VDE 8.1, PFA 21 – this abbreviation stands for the section of track between altendorf and strullendorf, which the german railroad plans to upgrade to four tracks in the coming years. It does not yet have the building permit, but all the planning documents and the comments and objections of those affected are available to the government of upper franconia. The federal railway authority has to evaluate the documents and send a final statement to the federal railway authority, which then has to decide on the building permit for the planning approval phase (PFA).

But the course has not yet been finally set in many partial and detailed questions. For example, there are still differences in important aspects such as accessibility or arm protection between what the railroad is prepared to build and what communities and residents want. In order to clarify such questions, a meeting has now been scheduled in which, in addition to the municipalities concerned, politicians from the region as well as representatives of the relevant ministries and, of course, the railroad are to participate.

Strullendorf provides a good example of the existing differences in viewpoint. The local council recently announced that they are waiting for concrete answers and commitments from the railroad company. She now returns the black peter by return of mail. In a statement, which reached the frankischer tag, it says, to the points of the municipality of strullendorf presented by "mayor desel have been available for a long time all the documents".

For example, the municipality had already received a draft planning agreement for barrier-free access to the train station at the beginning of 2017, but had initially refused to assume the costs it would have to bear under the agreement. It was only a year later, after the conclusion of the consultation procedure, that the municipality revised this, so that it was solely responsible for the delays caused by a subsequent planning of the western access.

As far as strullendorf's request for an extension of the noise barrier to suden is concerned, the railroad insists in its statement that there is "neither a factual justification of the necessity nor a request by the municipality to extend the noise barrier at its expense" give.

As far as the sudan link bridge is concerned, strullendorf wants to know exactly how the costs will be divided up. The railroad, on the other hand, sees the planning as the sole responsibility of the municipality and expects it to first obtain the building law and make binding deadline statements before an agreement can be concluded with a precise breakdown of the cost shares.

Comment

If you order a pizza special and then get a pizza salami delivered, you will probably think twice before complaining. But when it's not just a matter of missing ham coverings and single-digit euro amounts, but of drastic changes for an entire town and millions of euros, things look very different. Particularly in the case of railroad expansion, there is the additional question of who actually ordered the work. The answer: the federal government ordered it, the railroad is delivering it – and the municipalities that have been hit by it have to swallow it. But they don't just want to get the unpalatable uniform coating. Special requests are charged to the customer, say the pizza delivery men from the railroad. But what are special requests? Barrier-free train stations and arm protection certainly not. That should be in the 21. Century standard. "But you will only get it if it is built at all". Making the ICE expansion palatable to the people with this is already questionable. That they should also pay for it is clearly going too far. For other wishes it may look different. For example, the sudbrucke in strullendorf is a project that can serve the infrastructure of the entire community. No one will refuse to make an additional payment. But the railroad can't seriously expect the municipality to commission the multi-million project without knowing how high its share of the costs will be.