Road traffic more promoted?
Wissing should trick when investing in rails
04/16/2022, 12:11 am
So far, the FDP has not been attached to the image of the party that is most energetically committed to the traffic turnaround. A media report fits this picture. According to this, Minister of Transport Wissing should use arithmetic tricks to make the funding for the rail network appear higher.
According to a report by “Spiegel”, Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing applies double standards to investments in the rail and road network. According to the magazine, this comes from a response from the transport department to a request from left-wing member of the Bundestag Victor Perli. Accordingly, Wissing’s promise to invest more money in the rail network than in the road network in 2022 is based on a calculation trick.
According to the draft budget, the investments in rail included planning services that are allocated proportionately to the rail funds, the magazine reported. However, this is not the case with road construction. If the same criterion were applied to road construction expenditure, it would increase by around 980 million euros – and thus exceed the funds for rail transport, it said. When investing in the road, “a billion planning costs would simply be calculated out,” criticized Perli in the “Spiegel”.
The Federal Ministry of Transport explained that the planning costs for the road were only shown separately because they were carried out by Autobahn GmbH or on their behalf or by engineers on behalf of the Federal Highway Authority. At Deutsche Bahn, on the other hand, no differentiation is made. You will receive the money as a whole for planning and investments, “since you place all the orders yourself and are not an authority”.
Electrification of the rails is probably not progressing
A ministry spokeswoman also emphasized that investments in rail will not decrease, but will increase significantly by 2026 – “by more than 130 million euros in 2022 alone and by a billion euros by 2026”. According to “Spiegel”, however, Wissing is not sticking to the announcements made about the electrification of the rails. According to the coalition agreement, 75 percent of the network should be electrified in eight years, currently it is around 62 percent. In order to achieve the goal, DB Netz would have to build 500 kilometers of new overhead lines per year, almost ten times more than in the years 2010 to 2020.
In fact, however, the Bahn subsidiary’s plans are significantly lower, according to “Spiegel”, citing an award preview. So far, only 390 kilometers are planned for 2024.