The CSU and Freie Wahlern parliamentary groups are calling for changes to Deutsche Bahn’s plans for the controversial northern access to the Brenner Pass between Munich and Kiefersfelden. Between Grafing and Ostermünchen, instead of the preferred railway route, a variant is to be implemented that is more oriented towards the existing tracks and was developed on the basis of suggestions from the region. North of Rosenheim, the Inn should be crossed instead of under, which the DB rejected as too expensive. The MPs are also calling for underground solutions for other sections, for example near Riedering and Rohrdorf, and for the connection to the existing tracks in the southern Inn Valley. The addressee of the application is the state government, which is supposed to lobby the federal government for these demands.
“We want the federal government, as the client, to make the railways responsible for preferring the best and most compatible solution for the local population. Because the Brenner base tunnel is the foundation of the traffic turnaround in the Alpine region,” says the traffic spokesman for the CSU parliamentary group , Juergen Baumgartner. Critics like Ates Gürpinar, who sits in the Bundestag for the Left Party, consider the demands of the CSU and FW to be more of an election campaign. The behavior of the CSU is “mendacious,” says Gürpinar. After all, until recently, the party provided the Federal Minister of Transport for twelve years. She is jointly responsible for the planning, but now gives the lawyer for the residents. Because the project, which is part of a railway line from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean Sea and is intended to enable freight traffic to be shifted to rail, is met with strong opposition in the region. The section through the district of Rosenheim, which is already planned to be almost two-thirds underground, was estimated by Bahn 2021 at seven billion euros.