The city of Augsburg was only recently awarded the title of “bicycle-friendly municipality” for a further seven years. It may be that the evaluation committee that checked on site did not take a very close look at Viktoriastraße in front of the main train station. Even the construction consultant Gerd Merkle says that the strip for cyclists is “absurdly narrow” there. This is due to the fact that there are robinia trees a few meters apart in a row, at some point the bike path just passed it, the pedestrians have to go somewhere – the bike path is bumpy and wavy in parts because the roots of the trees push up. Merkle would like to build a cycle path here according to modern standards, but now a tree survey is needed.
The entire station forecourt is being redesigned as part of the mammoth renovation of the station, but the question of what will happen to the trees on the forecourt is currently much more important in Augsburg than the cycle lane on Viktoriastrasse. Because they should be preserved in as large a number as possible, but there is not much left of this project in the current plans. The protest is forming, which is why the city government from the CSU and the Greens wants to re-evaluate the construction project: are there ways to get more trees?
The question is highly political in Augsburg for several reasons. For one thing, the climate camp is more active here than in almost any other large city: activists only recently occupied trees in a residential area. Only for a short time, then the felling work began. However, such a scenario at the main station would not suit the city, partly because it only formulated a tree concept for the northern city center at the beginning of the year. “Every tree in the city is a small contribution to a good urban climate,” reads it.
It would be strange, of all places, to clear the ground at the main train station. And then, a few years ago, almost everything went wrong on the southern half of the station forecourt anyway: According to environmental officer Reiner Erben, a DIN standard actually stipulated that the trees there should be preserved. Apparently, that didn’t matter to Deutsche Bahn, which flattened everything but three copies and set up alternative containers for station catering.
The CSU and the Greens have now submitted an application on how the redesign of the station forecourt can be rescheduled in order to get more trees. The current design plan envisages 42 trees there. Incidentally, more than in front of the train stations in Munich, Nuremberg, Hamburg, Vienna and Oslo, as the administration emphasizes. But there are also 34 short-term car parking spaces and space for taxis and 466 bicycles in a Kiss&Ride car park – and a large forecourt is planned, which will be highly frequented with around 43,000 commuters per day. Among other things, the Greens could imagine reducing this open space. The request from the CSU sounds less enthusiastic, but it goes along with it, as long as the preservation of more trees is somehow compatible with the planning goals.
With some trees, the roots are already pushing the paving up.
(Photo: City of Augsburg)
A first tree report should now clarify, for example, which trees are actually worth preserving. Some, the construction and environmental consultants list, are already ill, damaged or underage, so they don’t get enough light from larger specimens nearby. Still others are simply not compatible with the construction measures because the roots are already pressing against the surface. From the point of view of the administration, new plantings would make more sense in such cases in order to avoid soil damage. “In the 1980s, you just dug a hole and planted a tree. That’s no longer possible today,” says Merkle.
However, there is still plenty of time for discussions and protests. The conversion of the station will probably cost around 250 million euros, in August 2023 the new distribution level and the reception hall should be ready, in spring 2024 the new tram stop could be in the second basement. The station forecourt will then be redesigned from mid-2026 at the earliest.