The German Transportation Fiasco

If one thinks German transit and transportation is a panacea, think again, as the countries transit infrastructure is beset with costly maintenance issues, the major one being under-funding.

We see the same on this side of the pond, with aging transit infrastructure in need of major maintenance, especially in Vancouver.

From the Guardian….

Why German trains donai??i??t run on time any more

For all the old cliches about Teutonic efficiency, much of Germanyai??i??s transport infrastructure is in a terrible state of disrepair, and many major works have been badly botched. A chronic lack of investment is to blame.

As the fireworks flew and the brass band played at the recent opening of the 57km-long Gotthard Tunnel under the Swiss Alps, Angela Merkel, who was on the first train to pass through it, could not resist the remark: ai???This is something we Germans still need to work on a littleai???.

The project was not only completed on time and within budget, she noted with admiration, but it will shave the best part of an hour off the regular journey time between Zurich and Lugano.

A joke heard quite regularly these days is: ai???If you want to see German efficiency, go to Switzerland.ai??? While it has German engineers squirming, most can only nod in agreement. It is certainly hard to imagine such a prestige project happening in Germany these days. Most of the countryai??i??s recent high-profile construction schemes have become great national embarrassments, beset by massive delays and huge cost overruns. A new Berlin airport, originally scheduled to open in 2010, is still years from being realized and billions over budget, while the Elbphilharmonie ai??i?? a concert hall in Hamburgai??i??s harbour city ai??i?? is seven years behind schedule and ai??i??550m (A?430m) over cost. Stuttgartai??i??s underground railway station is in a similarly shambolic state. Thatai??i??s not to mention the collapse of Cologneai??i??s city archives a few years ago, thanks to the botched construction of a new underground line.

So what happened to the famed German traits of efficiency, accuracy and punctuality? The number 174,630,000 was used to rub further salt into the wound this week. Thatai??i??s the number of minutes German passenger and goods trains have been losing every day over the past year, with train delays said to have risen by almost a third since 2009. The reason is an extensive wave of very overdue repairs and modernization taking place across the 33,000km (20,500 mile) rail network, from replacing ageing tracks and 19th-century signalling stations to repairing crumbling bridges and platforms, some of which are so old they are said to be close to collapse.

Now for the rest of the story…………….