Actually, things can now move forward quickly with the necessary measures to build the Pasing subway station, at least from the perspective of the city of Munich’s building department. The construction work has been put out to tender and the city council could consider awarding it to a bidding consortium as early as December. Construction would begin in April 2025. If everything works out, the subway station would be finished by the end of 2028, according to the construction department. Until this Thursday, however, it didn’t look like it would. Deutsche Bahn Station & Service AG, which is responsible for operating the train stations, had filed a lawsuit against the planning approval decision for the construction of the subway station before the Bavarian Administrative Court (VGH) in Munich.
However, after almost four hours of negotiations, the railway, the Free State of Bavaria as the defendant and the city of Munich, which was invited in the proceedings, reached an agreement before the 22nd Senate of the VGH. The court declared the matter closed.
The reason for the railway’s lawsuit against the project, which will essentially be located under Josef-Felder-Straße, was the fear that the impact on the above-ground Pasing train station with the S-Bahn, regional and long-distance traffic was not sufficient in the planning approval decision would be taken into account. Among other things, the railway doubted in its lawsuit that the passenger underpasses running under the S-Bahn station, which have to be partially closed during construction work, are sufficient to ensure “passenger traffic”. This was also one of the central points in the hearing before the VGH.
The construction department assured the railway that a tunnel would always remain open during the construction phase. When work begins on the other one, about half of it will be freely accessible to travelers. In concrete terms, this means that pedestrians have around 3.25 meters available. The fact that this is not exactly half – each tunnel is 8.25 meters wide – led to a lengthy discussion between the parties.
The building department promised to carry out “random monitoring”.
One of the judges finally told one of the railway’s two legal representatives that it was not clear to him why he was insisting “whether it is really exactly half of the underpass” that will be available to pedestrians. The lawyer justified this with safety aspects and pointed out that the building department’s forecasts were “not useful” with regard to the number of pedestrians determined. Ultimately, the construction department agreed with the railway representatives that the “bypass solutions” for the pedestrian tunnels would be “subjected to an expert review” to determine whether they also meet the railway’s safety requirements.
In addition to the “reduction in passage” of the pedestrian tunnels, the railway representative criticized the planning approval decision, among other things, the precautions regarding construction noise, fire protection and “vibration protection” in the shops rented by the DB. The building department promised to carry out “random monitoring” here.
With regard to the north platform of the Pasing S-Bahn station, the railway’s legal representative said that the plans for this were still in the “draft stage”. Approval planning is expected for the end of this year. The plans for the south platform of the S-Bahn station are in preliminary planning. The rail lawyer said he could not provide any information about schedules because the project depends on the completion of the subway station.