“City-Bahn” in Wiesbaden: citizens bury the traffic change project

reWiesbaden traffic planners hadn’t expected this gossip, at least not with this vehemence: in a referendum, more than 62 percent of voters rejected one of the largest transportation infrastructure projects in the state capital’s history. of Hesse.

The city council had previously put the 40-kilometer “City-Bahn” into play with great approval. And the Hessian Green Transport Minister, Tarek Al-Wazir, had put a lot of effort into the federal government for the “smart and overdue project”.

With success: 90 percent of the costs of, according to the latest estimates, 426 million euros will be borne by the federal and state governments. But after years of deeply divided debate, the residents of Wiesbaden now coldly said “No thanks.” And the Greens are facing fragments of their transportation policy in and around the state capital.

A tram line was planned that should have gone south to Mainz and through the city of Wiesbaden to the spa town of Bad Schwalbach in north-western Taunus. It should reduce the immense traffic pollution and with it the high air pollution values. According to the German Environmental Aid (DUH), Wiesbaden is one of the most congested cities in Germany, and the air is often just as bad. Until now, only buses have been running there, so a route through the city would have to be completely re-established.

Would you rather ignore the will of the voters?

But the head of the traffic department, Andreas Kowol (Greens), was sure that many commuters in the city, which has been growing for years, would switch to public transport. And the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) should also be better connected if it actually builds a new headquarters for its more than 7,000 employees in a new planned district of Wiesbaden. So far, BKA employees are spread over ten buildings in the city.

Without a referendum, the “City-Bahn” would probably have been implemented, because only the FDP and the AfD had opposed it. Recently, many other institutions had supported him, from the Chamber of Commerce to the unions, Fridays for Future and the works council of bus drivers.

At least the parliamentary groups of the SPD, Greens, CDU and Left Party now have to ask themselves to what extent they really represent the will of the voters in their transportation policy. Or if, to achieve their goals, they might prefer to avoid involving citizens in the future.

Ironically, the Greens, who talk a lot about participation, did just that in Wiesbaden. Probably unaware that the vote could not go according to their wishes, the party delayed for a long time setting a date and agreement on the formulation of the question of the vote.

The leader of the green parliamentary group Christiane Hinninger spoke out in favor of a poll in 2021 only, but defended herself against the accusation of blockade or delaying tactics: her party just wanted to “make sure that a sensible referendum procedure with adequate citizen information is also carried out. perform in Crown times. ” can “.

But Mayor Gert-Uwe Mende (SPD), who absolutely wanted to implement the project, but under no circumstances without the approval of the citizens, disagreed: a vote only after the approval of the planning was neither negotiable nor honest.

And so the Wiesbadeners actually buried the ambitious project, which Mende called an “opportunity of the century for a human-friendly city,” unmoved. Years of planning and all citizen participation, in which more than 10,000 suggestions from the population were considered, are then obsolete.

One lane should have been rededicated

In addition to the high costs, which are likely to spiral out of control, opponents criticized, among other things, the prospect of long-term permanent construction works in the center of the spa town. Furthermore, the tram solution was found to be too slow and therefore unattractive to commuters. An S-Bahn, for example, runs between Mainz and Wiesbaden central station, which is much faster.

Another argument was that the platform of the track should not be passable for cars and, therefore, the train would take up too much space. This will lead to a traffic blackout along the route and ultimately an increase in CO₂Emissions. Yet quite a few voters, with their no, should have shown Green Traffic MP Kowol what they thought of the recent rededication of a lane in the inner city ring to an environmental lane: that is, nothing.

As climate activists protest against the expansion of the highway a few kilometers away in the Dannenröder forest, the green traffic planners in Wiesbaden failed to take the population with them, a problem with which Wiesbaden is not alone.

In 2013, the “Campusbahn” failed a referendum in Aachen with a collapse, although the council had settled on the € 240 million project with a 90 percent majority. In northern Baden, the vision of a continuous tram line between Schwetzingen and Heidelberg was overturned in a referendum, with 70 percent of the votes cast and a sensational 61 percent turnout.

In Tübingen, Mayor Boris Palmer (Greens) would like to build an “ISS”, a route within the city to the planned regional light rail. But even in the green student city of the Neckar, citizen initiatives are raising the spirits against the “ISS” and even accusing Palmer of foul play: the brake on the acquisition of more electric buses, that is a “prior determination” for the Light Rail. The planned referendum has just been postponed, initially until 2021.