New discrepancies surrounding the construction of the tram line to the Johanneskirchen S-Bahn station: Contrary to what has previously been publicly stated, the Munich municipal utilities (SWM) have not yet received the necessary permits for tree felling on Johanneskirchner Straße. A representative of the SWM admitted this on Wednesday in the general meeting of the city council. It also became known that the municipal utilities apparently applied for the permit from the wrong place.
The SWM and its subsidiary Münchner Verkehrsgesellschaft (MVG) now have to clear up the ambiguities together with mobility officer Georg Dunkel by October 18th, then the mobility committee will deal with the issue again. It will also be about an error in the noise protection report, which the MVG had already admitted. The planned tree felling, which would be necessary to prepare the construction site, has been suspended for the time being.
The issue was made public last week by CSU state parliament member Robert Brannekämper and lawyer Benno Ziegler, who represents residents of the planned tram route on Freischützstrasse. This week, the CSU city councilors Fabian Ewald and Jens Luther, who are closely linked to Brannekämper, put the issue on the agenda via an urgent motion in order to stop premature felling, as Luther said. The city should now wait and see whether the government of Upper Bavaria will issue a planning approval decision (i.e. the building permit) for the tram route.
The discussion is about an approximately 700 meter long branch of the existing tram route from Cosimastrasse to Johanneskirchen S-Bahn station, which will become part of the tram north tangent and serve as an alternative if there are problems on the S8 route to the airport. The construction is expected to cost around 60 million euros.
Alex Indra, the head of “Major Mobility Projects”, took a stand on behalf of the SWM at the general meeting; he represented the MVG boss Ingo Wortmann who was unable to attend. Indra explained that there are currently 34 trees “in the middle” of the road, that we have a permit for felling eight trees, and that we are still waiting for the okay from the Department for Climate and Environmental Protection for the remaining 26. Jacqueline Charlier, the deputy head of the planning department, spoke up about this. In principle, her house is still responsible for tree felling, but in this case the application was “incorrectly submitted to us; it must be dealt with by the government of Upper Bavaria.”
“We didn’t make a mistake,” says the SWM representative
Indra also spoke about the noise report. A statement from the author has only been available since this Wednesday morning. The possible four-track expansion of the S8 was “not taken into account for various reasons,” explained Indra. But one thing is clear: “We didn’t make a mistake.” Despite indignant questions, he didn’t want to say more about it. “We are more used to such behavior from Deutsche Bahn, not from a municipal company,” criticized Tobias Ruff (ÖDP).
Regarding the question of the overall approval status, SWM man Indra said: “From the point of view of the government of Upper Bavaria, nothing stands in the way of a positive planning approval decision.” One hopes that things will move quickly now.
FDP city councilor Fritz Roth criticized that it was “embarrassing for the city that a destructive spirit like Brannekämper could put the issue on the agenda.” Brannekämper is always against projects and never offers his own solutions. With a view to the noise report and the tree felling, Roth said that it couldn’t be “that 700 meters of tram could go so wrong.”
Paul Bickelbacher (Greens) also said he was surprised “that mistakes were made” and that improvements had to be made quickly. He also expressed his irritation that the CSU, which wanted to expand local public transport, was fighting this tram project. Manuel Pretzl, parliamentary group leader of the CSU/Free Voters, called this “shabby” and said the parties simply had a “focus on different projects”. The CSU is more in favor of expanding subways than trams.
Anne Hübner, parliamentary group leader of the SPD/Volt, discussed the fact that the expansion of the tram network also involves fundamental conflicts: “In order to redesign the city and make it friendlier for people who travel by public transport or by bike, trees have to be felled and parking spaces are lost,” she explained. “We always have to weigh things up and come to quick and good decisions.”