There is a risk of billions in holes in the budget, which also affect climate protection investments. At the same time, billions are being pumped into subway projects, the benefits of which are loud monitor-Research is controversial.
In many large cities, new subways are seen as a crucial step towards a climate-friendly transport transition. A Germany-wide survey by ARDmagazine monitor shows: Tunnel projects for S-Bahn and U-Bahn trains are currently being built or planned in seven of the ten largest German cities. Megaprojects that often last decades and cost many billions.
Cost explosions in tunnel projects
In Munich, for example, the tunnel is being built for a second S-Bahn route. The so-called 2nd main route. When construction began, around 3.2 billion euros were estimated for this; today it is estimated at 8.5 billion. Construction work on the new subway line 5 has begun in Hamburg. The tunnel will cross under the port city for around 25 kilometers. Just one year after construction began, the costs for the first five kilometers alone rose from 1.8 billion euros to around 2.8 billion euros, with the total costs estimated at 16.5 billion euros.
Cologne continues to build despite the collapse of the city archives
And there could also be a new subway tunnel in Cologne, on the so-called east-west axis. This is expected to cost over 800 million euros. Completion: 2040 at the earliest. The expansion of an above-ground variant is also being examined. But according to press reports, the city and transport companies apparently prefer a tunnel.
The city of Cologne has not yet digested the debacle surrounding the last tunnel construction. During the construction of an underground north-south connection in 2009, the Cologne city archives and adjacent buildings collapsed, killing two people. The subway tunnel is still not finished today. The costs have now more than doubled from 550 million euros to 1.3 billion euros – without the additional costs due to the collapsed city archive.
High CO2 emissions from tunnel construction
Decades of construction times, billions in costs for tunnel construction in public transport: this is always justified by the necessary transport turnaround and climate protection. Experts dispute this because large amounts of reinforced concrete are used for tunnel construction. And the production of steel and concrete causes immense CO2 emissions – so it is extremely harmful to the climate.
A study for various associations and environmental organizations from 2020 examined the climate impact of Berlin’s subway plans. The new construction of an average kilometer of subway tunnel releases around 80,000 tons of CO2. According to the study, the trains would have to run for at least around 90 years before they start to be worthwhile in terms of ecological or climate policy.
“That’s why it’s absurd to want to permanently build tunnels in a time of climate change,” says traffic researcher Heiner Monheim. “In terms of climate policy, it doesn’t fit at all.”
Subways for more passengers?
From the point of view of cities and transport companies, capacity reasons often speak in favor of underground expansion of public transport. The Hamburg transport authority wrote on request that only an underground connection would be able to transport a sufficient number of people on the route during peak times. Critics doubt that.
The transport expert Jens Ode analyzed the subway project in Hamburg on behalf of the Hamburg Left. “For a fraction of the construction costs, for three billion euros, you could get 150 kilometers of trams in Hamburg,” says Jens Ode. “Completely climate-friendly, quickly built, comfortable for everyone.”
In 2018, the Bundestag’s Scientific Service noted in a status report on the financing of subway construction that a kilometer of new subway construction costs up to 300 million euros, while a kilometer of tram construction could cost ten million euros.
Other transport researchers are also calling for a move away from expensive subway construction. Instead, the bus and tram lines should be expanded above ground. But cities often lack the political will to do this: “This is only possible if, in the conflict with car traffic, you finally have the courage to take space away from car traffic,” says traffic expert Monheim.
Costs and benefits calculated?
The fact that many municipalities still rely on tunnel projects worth billions is also due to the federal and state funding policies. The city of Hamburg, for example, expects that around 70 percent of the construction costs for the new subway will be covered by the federal government. The federal government pays billions in funding per year to states and municipalities for the expansion of public transport through various funding sources.
The prerequisite for funding new construction projects is a positive benefit-cost analysis – i.e. the expectation that the investments will produce a positive economic return. But the positive result often depends on assumptions and criteria that later often turn out to be a mirage.
On the second main route in Munich, for example, the benefit-cost analysis had to be renewed several times as a result of the cost explosion. “You get the impression that you spent so long tinkering with details and changing things until the desired benefit-cost value was achieved,” says traffic consultant Martin Vieregg, who himself has carried out several studies on the second main route.
Deutsche Bahn, as the developer of the second main line, even admits that expectations regarding costs were too positive: “The assumptions about the schedule and costs (…) were based on the knowledge available at the time – they In retrospect, they may have been overly optimistic.”
Funding: The federal government apparently has no overview
The federal government, which provides billions in funding for public transport projects, apparently has no overview of how much money it is spending on which public transport projects and how the money is actually used.
The Federal Audit Office clearly criticized this in a report in 2022: “The federal government currently does not know how much money it is using to finance public transport overall. It is not possible to adequately monitor the achievement of targets in transport and climate protection and to adapt measures if necessary ” says the report.
Nothing has changed to this day. On monitor-The responsible Federal Ministry of Transport passes the accusation on to the states. But we are working together on “more transparency and, if necessary, efficiency in the use of funds”.
Tram in Strasbourg
A look at neighboring France, Strasbourg, shows that there is another way. Tram expansion has been pushed forward here massively in recent decades. At the time, the construction of a subway was also being discussed in Strasbourg, says Pia Imbs, President of the Strasbourg Metropolitan Region. But the citizens spoke out in favor of the tram concept. “It transformed the city and made it more beautiful. And it was cheaper.”
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