There have already been many initiatives and words of approval, but nothing has happened yet. Now the Greens in the city council are getting a long-standing heart project for the city center off the ground: the uncovering of the city stream on Herzog-Wilhelm-Strasse. In a joint motion, the Greens/Pink List parliamentary group and its coalition partner SPD/Volt demand that the building department press ahead with the planning and start public participation. In addition, there will be a “Bachrunde” analogous to the “Isarrunde” in which experts will discuss which excavations are still possible. In particular, the Greens are thinking of the Glockenbach.
“There have already been city council resolutions for both, but these have not yet been implemented due to a lack of resources,” says Green City Councilor Florian Roth. “We are now applying for the necessary funds – 133,000 euros – to be fixed in the budget.” Roth does not yet want to commit to when the stream will ripple through the park strip on Herzog-Wilhelm-Strasse, which runs parallel to Sonnenstrasse. “But I assume that the planning and participation can be completed next year.” According to this, the implementation could theoretically start from 2024.
Regarding the character of citizen participation, Roth says: “It’s not about whether, but about how, for example if additional ideas for the design of the park come up.” In addition, the question arises as to whether Herzog-Wilhelm-Straße between Sendlinger Tor and Josephspitalstraße can become a traffic-calmed zone, but this also requires coordination with the planning and mobility departments. The exposure of the “Western Stadtgrabenbach”, which flows north to the Hofgarten, should be implemented as soon as possible regardless of this.
Underground streams flow through Munich over a length of about 175 kilometers. The idea of bringing the creek under Herzog-Wilhelm-Strasse back to the surface dates back to the 1980s. In 2017, the environmental organization Green City presented a feasibility study by the engineering office Patscheider und Partner from Mals in South Tyrol. In 2019, the city council approved the project in principle, but so far without further consequences. That should change now.