Summer, sun, risk of traffic jams: when many people in Munich go on vacation during their big holidays, the construction workers in the city traditionally really get going. They tear up streets, lay cables or tram tracks. And anyone who drives in the city center usually quickly realizes that this is not a good idea. Because even if there is less traffic during the holidays, there is still enough going on that it slows down in certain places.
It feels like there are more construction sites in public space this year than there have been for a long time. And yet the building department names “only” 1180 construction sites for this year. In 2020 there were significantly more, namely 1,500. Currently there are around 70, many “summer construction sites” were opened even before the big holidays. The fact that people have the feeling that it is particularly bad this year is due to the fact that they are digging in critical places. Road users with local knowledge have long since got used to the long-running construction sites at Sendlinger-Tor-Platz (until mid-2022), Ludwigsbrücke (until 2022) and Altstadtring (until 2024).
A lot is currently being built on Schwanthalerstrasse and Bayerstrasse. Many roads are therefore closed or only single-lane passable.
Image: Friedrich Bungert
Why is so much being built? Because large parts of the infrastructure date from the 1970s. Tram tracks, for example, have to be rebuilt. In other places, the municipal utility is laying new lines, for example for district heating or cooling.
Image: Friedrich Bungert
For children (and so many adults) this is all an extremely exciting spectacle. From the waiting car, only a few should be happy about all the construction sites. There is really a lot to see.
Image: Friedrich Bungert
Where exactly now? Orientation is really not easy right now. Some streets now have one-way rules for cars, but not for cyclists or pedestrians. The only thing that helps: look at the signs, pay attention to the yellow lines, be considerate.
Image: Friedrich Bungert
Incidentally, the construction sites are no fun for the MVG either. Some of the bus routes have to evade and are also stuck in slow traffic. It is said that there are still no major delays.
Image: Friedrich Bungert
In the station district, however, a kind of Bermuda triangle has now emerged from several construction sites: Anyone who gets lost here in a motorized vehicle is hopelessly lost. Stadtwerke has been laying new tram tracks in Bayerstrasse since July 5th. This work should last at least until September 19th. Since Bayerstraße between Mitterer- and Martin-Greif-Straße is a one-way street out of town, traffic is diverted in the opposite direction via Schwanthalerstraße. This also includes the replacement buses of the Münchner Verkehrsgesellschaft (MVG), which run instead of the temporarily closed tram lines 18 and 19.
But there is also a construction site in Schwanthalerstraße – here the municipal utilities are laying a district heating house connection, which means that until the end of July 2021 there will be one lane each between Hermann-Lingg-Straße and St.-Paul-Straße next to the construction site . Especially in the morning this slows down the traffic and thus also the buses of the MVG. There you can hear that there has not yet been any evidence of – probable – delays on the replacement lines.
The situation on Paul-Heyse-Straße has been challenging for all road users, including cyclists, since spring: the municipal utilities are working on electricity and district heating and cooling lines between Schwanthaler and Landwehrstraße. In the direction of the Paul-Heyse-Unterführung, the road is therefore still a one-way street until mid-September. The underpass itself will continue to work until at least the end of this year, which is why there is still a one-way rule to the south – only cyclists and pedestrians can pass the tube in both directions. The work is dragging on because several trades are being done there. After work by the public utility company, new wall cladding and new lighting will be installed in the underpass, which has long been known as an “eyesore”.
Work is still going on right at the main train station. The Stadtwerke are building a third tramway track at Bahnhofplatz, which is why neither cyclists nor motorists can pass in the north. Bad news for the latter: even when the construction work is completed, they will not be able to travel north in the future. There are also permanent plans to close the station square completely to motorized individual traffic after the completion of the new reception building of the main station (according to the current status in 2028) in order to create a better quality of stay and a kind of inviting entrance portal to the city center for rail travelers, among other things.
After all, it will soon continue in the adjacent Prielmayerstraße. The track work there was delayed because there were static problems with an underpass at the Karstadt building. According to the MVG, tram operation is expected to start again in mid-August. If you want to get a complete overview of all construction sites in the city, take a look at the city’s homepage (muenchen.de/bastellen) and Stadtwerke (swm-inf Infrastruktur.de/online-services/bastellen) recommended. The construction department updates the construction site situation every week with time information, if this is possible.
The fact that so much has been dug recently is also due to the fact that large parts of the infrastructure were created in the 1970s and now need to be renewed. Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) said last Tuesday in an interview with Munich TV that none of this is being done “because we think it’s so fun to jam the traffic, but because it has to stop”.