“March promise broken”
Railway associations upset about meager rail budget
07/05/2023, 4:25 p.m
In order to clear the modernization backlog on the German rail network, Minister of Transport Wissing has to spend billions. Finance Minister Lindner is leaving his FDP colleagues out in the rain with the draft budget. There is criticism of that.
Transport and railway associations accuse the federal government of not keeping promises to modernize the rail network. “Significantly fewer investment funds have been set aside for modernizing the railways than the coalition agreed in March,” criticized the German Railway Industry Association (VDB) with regard to the cabinet decision on the federal budget. Although the VDB praised the fact that funds for maintaining the railways are being increased, in view of the rising costs this is little more than inflation compensation. “Future projects such as the high-performance network and a large part of digitization will be postponed indefinitely,” criticized VDB General Manager Sarah Stark.
The government plans for rail and bike meant a “farewell to progress”, criticized the ecologically oriented Verkehrsclub Deutschland (VCD). “The railway is the backbone of the traffic turnaround,” but the funds provided were not sufficient for this, explained the railway policy spokesman for the VCD, Alexander Kaas Elias. He called on the Bundestag to make improvements to the government draft.
The transport alliance Pro-Rail Alliance also criticized the equipment: “While the rail investments in the 2024 budget draft are in the right direction, the amount of funds is not yet. As pleasing as the planned increase in rail investments is, it is clear that the planned funds are far behind the investment requirement of 45 billion euros determined by the coalition itself will remain behind in the coming years,” said Dirk Flege, Managing Director of the Pro-Rail Alliance. He also called for an increase. “What is crucial is that the coalition does it again in the summer and mobilizes additional funds from the climate and transformation fund for rail.”
“Drastic cuts” in bike path construction
There was also harsh criticism of cuts in funds for expanding cycle paths. The bicycle club (ADFC) criticized “drastic cuts” in the budget draft. This means that “the implementation of the national cycling plan is in danger,” it said. “There can be no talk of an expansion offensive for cycling, as the traffic light coalition decided in March with its modernization package,” said ADFC Federal Chairwoman Rebecca Peters.
The ADFC pointed out that only 400 million euros are planned for the cycling infrastructure next year – after 560 million euros in the current year and 750 million euros in the previous year. The sum of one billion euros per year for cycling demanded by the conference of transport ministers is far from being achieved.
The VCD spokeswoman for cycling, Anika Meenken, also criticized the cut in funding for cycling by around 30 percent. “Anyone who uses one of the most environmentally friendly means of transport in this way will neither promote the turnaround in traffic nor meet climate targets,” she warned.