'Missing' Alternatives Story

A couple of days ago, I essayed a piece on the Wiesbaden concept of bringing in a city-tram, the intense fight by some local residents against it, and how the local landscape was being affected.  There's a piece in the local news today (Wiesbadenaktuell), which talks to the subject of 'missing' alternatives for citybahn concept.

This is a curious piece of the argument against the tram being developed for the city (population of 285,000 with an additional 212,000 from the sister-city of Mainz).

What the anti-city-bahn crusaders are suggesting is that they want other options laid out, and perhaps those would be better ideas.

I often walk around both Wiesbaden and Mainz, and stand amazed at the enormous amount of traffic flowing in and out of the metropolitan region.    Both cities need massive long-term planning....something that never been implemented.  In a sense, they've become 'Frankfurt-west'....just a larger and more bulkier version of Frankfurt.

First, there's a massive need for a 4th bridge between the two cities, to cross the Rhein.  Why it won't be pursued?  Mostly because there's only one location to fit between the two cities and it'd have to cross an island, which means a massive environmental fight because of laws in place. 

Second, most locals would agree that folks in Wiesbaden have an negative attitude about public transportation. Lets face it, the bus network....while large and fairly developed....has presented various problems (schedules, over-crowding, hoodlums, etc).  Add to it the idea of battery buses (to be integrated into the network in 2019), which people question the logic over. 

Third, bottlenecks are something that neither Mainz or Wiesbaden can resolve.  You could ask both to identify them, and they'd happily bring out a map and show the twenty-odd bottlenecks, but the amount of pain and suffering required (with cost), makes resolutions impossible. 

Fourth, cost.  What the two cities need....is a massive one to two billion Euro 'gift' to really pursue various agendas to lessen traffic.  Such gifts simply don't exist. 

So this entire missing alternatives story.....is more or less....just laying there.   You can talk about it while sipping some decent local wine.  But there's a hopeless end to the conversation.