I sometimes essay over my local German town (Wiesbaden) and it's issues. If you've been around the city for the past two years, there's been continual chatter about the 'CityBahn'.
The mayor and city council came to some point where they realized state money (from Hessen) could be up for a city tram project. Wiesbaden, with 285,000 residents (still growing), is one of the largest cities in Germany without any subway, trolly-car operation, or city tram. For the record, Mainz....with 205,000....has had a tram system for decades.
This past week, the city council ran a public forum and attempted to explain to the public that it's absolutely necessary to 'move on' and develop the tram. The public is mostly divided (maybe upwards to 50-percent against the tram).
The negative? Well....it comes to four different issues (my humble opinion):
1. Most everyone believes a 4th bridge needs to be built. Most everyone in this group also will tell you where the bridge needs to be built (about 100 meters away from where Wiesbadener Strasse and Biebicher Strasse meet up....on the far south-east end of town). The trouble here is that it'd have to cross an island, and German law forbids that unless you really go to far extremes. The invitation here and woes...mean you'd have to fight the environmentalists for at least five to ten years, and no one cares to do that.
2. The route often discussed for the CityBahn means it'd start along the river at Mainz-Kastel (on the Wiesbaden side of the river), and go along to Appelalle Strasse, then turn onto Biebricher Allee going toward the train-station, and then finally go by the city park to arrive in the mid-town area.
Just about everyone with houses along this route are negative, and don't want the noise or traffic associated with the idea.
3. The negative folks are asking for a plan 'B'. The city council? Well, since day one, there's been no plan 'B'. If you run the tram via any other route.....the bulk of consumers/users would be cut in half. In simple terms, you'd be building a mega project for half the customers possible.
4. Wiesbaden has progressed for almost all of the past hundred years with no real public transportation plan. In the past decade, with traffic now at a massive point, a small group of folks ten to argue that the interior of the city needs to be car-free. Yes, they actually want one to two kilometer circle (in the mid-town area) made up where there's nothing but bikes, walking, and e-scooters. At one point, they even suggested forbidding delivery vehicles, and having some kind of city-run e-trucks that would take pallets the last kilometer into the shopping district. Most stores and business operations just laugh when this discussion comes up.
To resolve this whole mess? I'd go and take the money from the state government and build a two-route mini-project. Route 'A' from the edge of Bierstadt, down past the American Army post, to the front of the train station, and end it by turning onto Bahnhofstrasse....stopping by Old Church. I'd then run 'B' from the Army post at Erbenheim, through the city of Erbenheim, along 455, then hit the same 'A' route turning and going to the Bahnhof (tracing the same 'A' tracks). Yes, I'd build for the least affect but get non-urbanized Wiesbaden folks to benefit out of this deal entirely. If the urban-dwellers of Wiesbaden don't want it.....then build it to suit an entirely different crowd. Part of this route would benefit the Ostfeld suburb project (yet to be built, and probably five to seven years away in the future). This would ramp up the value of the Ostfeld project, and make the Army area valuable (if it ever goes away).
The odds that anything will be built? In an amusing way, there's so much negativity that I think the whole future of public transportation in Wiesbaden will just linger along in 'talk-format' for decades. No one wants a policy because it means something has to be built, and a tramless world is the agreeable solution.
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