At Pentecost, as is well known, the Spirit of God should enliven and renew people. There is the miracle of Pentecost, there is the loud roar from heaven, everything is then suddenly clear and understandable. May this miracle, this roar descend into the construction sites of eternity in the middle of Munich. In the holes, in the tunnels, in the foundations of skyscrapers and concert halls that have never been built, in heaven and on earth. Because especially here in the excavation pits, everything has its time.
From the higher climes we turn to a small square in Haidhausen in close-up. It stands for what means for other cities Stuttgart 21, Elbphilharmonie, Berlin Airport and, yes, for Munich meanwhile also the second regular route. But more on that later. So if you can see the stair accesses at Rosenheimer Platz behind the large construction site fences for the tram (the tram tracks towards Grünwald are currently being gilded), you can see that they are cordoned off. For a long time. First only escalators should be repaired, then new concepts for S-Bahn access should be designed. The Lord Mayor commissioned a few feasibility studies for this. And now? If the mezzanine is blocked with mysterious viewing walls, one waits eagerly.
The three entrances at Rosenheimer Platz were originally supposed to be completed in 2028 at a cost of around 3.8 billion euros. Now there is talk of a “time window until 2037” and a total cost of 8.5 billion euros. Oh, no, that was the second main S-Bahn route. In times like these, you can lose track of things. The relations are shifting because everything is taking longer and more expensive anyway. Years become decades, centuries. And after the billion comes the quadrillion, then the trillion. Munich residents who circle the broken central station, have crawled through to the excavation pit at Marienhof and later dodged the falling rocks on the crumbling Gasteig can get a little dull.
Speaking of Gasteig. Will you still be fit enough to slide down the redesigned Maximilianstraße (to be completed in the “time window until 2064”) with the walker to the opening concert of the BR Symphony Orchestra in the newly renovated building? Or better via the Tram-Nordtangente, which is finally finished – but is no longer needed because air taxis have long been on the move in Munich? No one will then need access to superfluous S-Bahn trains any more.