Referendum on the Transrapid planned for 13.Apr.08

The notice of the poll arrived yesterday and the posters for the council elections are getting replaced by referedum posters.

The question is:

Are you in favour the the City of Munich siezes all legal possibilities against the Transrapid from HBF to the Airport,
particuarly suing against any planning decisions or financial engagement from the airport operating company?

Yes or no?

Calling for a Yes vote are the SPD, Greens, Linke, environmental organisations, public transport organisations, local residents associations.

MT what consequence will a "yes" vote have? Can it really stop them building the transrapid?

Just to simplify things as the question is a bit awkward:

Vote Yes = against transrapid
Vote No = for transrapid

yep, the question threw me for a second there too. Cos i didn't actually bother reading it properly.

A clear "Yes" vote, ie AGAINST the Transrapid, would give the city a clear mandate to do anything possible to stop the project and there could be no suggestion of ultra vires.

Any delay through the council blocking the planning process or any funding via the airport company is going to make the project less and less likely
as the faked costs as opposedto supposed benefits are going to become more and more obvious.

The referendum on its own won't stop the Transrapid, but it could be a nail in its coffin.

how much would action by Munich council cost the tax-payers? I mean, there is no guarantee that it will work and it might just end up costing us even more, oder?

My gf got the letter on it in the mail yesterday, she's voting "yes" (against the transrapid). I agree whole-heartedly.

Let's vote AGAINST the Transrapid! A clear NO!!!

;-)

OG, I think the cost of going to court to get injunctions against the planning process and any financial participation from the airport company would cost us less than the building of the bloody thing.

Beckstein was in Qatar yesterday introducing a plan for a Transrapid to Bahrain. Schickt den Transrapid in die Wüste!

Ironic pro-transrapid statement of the century award goes to...

Yes, I too worry about government projects costing a lot and not living up to the optimistically promised expectations

Sara: It's cute that you think everyone speaks German.

Also, only actual German citizens can vote on this, right? So ahh...get your partners to vote!

...

no all EU who are registered in Munich can vote, I will be giving it a Big NO as the dam thing will be doing 300Km per hour a few hundred meters from my back garden

So, umm, you mean "yes", right?

I will vote yes I am agianst it

It's cute for those who speak enough to understand, and I bet you'll see it around.

Scogs mate, I thought you lived in one of the Schliessheims?
This referendum is only in the City of Munich itself.

Any possibility of a postal vote mentioned on the thing? I'm not around that weekend and would like to add my mustard.

Jeeves, just fill out the back of the form for a postal vote, deadline 11.04 at 1200 for that.

Cool, thanks. I'll do that when I actually receive it.

Yep, and that sucks because the towns north of Munich (the Schleissheims, Eching, Neufahrn, etc) are also greatly impacted and, of course, we can't vote.

Any town affected by it should sue too then. Contact your representatives!

they have to have e-mail, right?

I thought I got some sort of voting form in the post, could be completly wrong though, If I can't vote for saying i dont want it I will be very Mad as the dam thing is roughly coming past our back garden and as I pay all the taxes in Lohhof I should have a say

Yes, that's exactly how I feel.

Yes, that's exactly how I feel.

I always thought that plebiscites were banned by the constitution after something that happened a few years back?

monkstown - just to make it easy for me to make up my mind to vote No, what are the arguments for and against transrapid again?

Well they had one over the building of the Allianz arena and also over the constuction of the tunnels on the Mittlerring, so I'm pretty sure they are not banned.

Other way around lassie, the costitution was chnabged to ALLOW city referenda in Bavaria.

What was that happened to the costitution?

Any road up, I received the form now. And just for info: if you want to vote by post then you have to fill in and send back the form so that they can send you another form which you then fill in and send back.

Any pissed-off resident of any of the Schleissheims want to make that worth my while
Just kidding. As if anyone would abuse democracy like that.

Some one put their vote up on sale on e bay a few years ago and there was aclamp down from the KVR IIRC.

I totally understand non Munich residents being pissed off at not getting a vote.
But this isn't not a yes/no on the Transrapid that CERTAINLY would be a blight on those townns in the NW,
but authorising Munich City Council to fight the Transrapid.
And stopping the Airport providing any funding. The airport being partly owned by...

youre all missing the point.

10 Minuten!

The real reason that the Transrapid is even an issue is that it entangles Munich in endless controversy, thus preventing other projects, which would truly benefit the city, from going forward. This is the way that the CSU-dominated Bavarian government punishes the SPD-voting city of Munich, while profiling themselves as the forward-thinkers to a gullible electorate.

I conclude this because there is really no business case for the Transrapid. On the one hand, it will have to be very expensive to cover the construction costs. Business travelers would pay this if it really saved them a significant portion of their travel time. I'll agree that a 10-minute point-to-point link to the Hauptbahnhof is very fast. But then you're at the Bahnhof, which I don't consider a useful destination because you then have to transfer and ride somewhere else. So I don't think the time savings will be significant for most journeys, and certainly won't justify the high price. So, there won't be many riders, which kills the business case.

So I don't think even the CSU believes the Transrapid will ever be built. Or if it somehow does get built, then it will be a ball-and-chain on Munich's leg.

Now, if the Transrapid were to run from Munich to the Airport and then on to Regensburg, then it would be worth having. I bet the taxpayers' money lost recently by the BayernLB and in the Kirsch collapse a few years ago would just about have paid for it, too...

Kirch as in Murdooch? ;-)

Yet again a debate on the Transrapid led by NIMBYs, the jealous, the short sighted and the clueless.

Heck, all we have to do is buy on CD-ROM from Litchenstein and the whole thing is financed in one go!

Cities need prestige projects to compete in an ever connected world. Lets not forget that FHMUC is not just exclusivly used by those living within the electoral areas of Munich, but Bavaria and Southern Germany and Central Europe. I do wonder how much money is going to be wasted protesting and challanging this project?

Nowhere near as much as if they were actually to build the thing.

The money though isnt available for anything else. That's the rather humerous thing about it. Fun new shinny thing which will be a massive plus for so many travelling to and from the airport, plus to the image of the city and its application for the olympics and big business bucks. Or nothing and keep the status quo and lose out.

I travel the S8 just about everyday. The amount of airport travelers who get change at HBF is very high.

What about all the Money that they though they could get, but which backed out of the deal or was deemed to be not avail. for such a project.
They no longer have all the required funding, thus more from taxes (The common people).. Not including the fact the planners were way off on their
orig. project cost which will make the TR even more expensive then commonly stated in the news.

Well, what a surprise, the Transrapid will cost much more than expected, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung

"Wie die SZ erfuhr, werden die Kosten nicht unter drei Milliarden Euro liegen."

"Bisher waren nach einer Machbarkeitsstudie aus dem Jahre 2002 Kosten von 1,85 Milliarden Euro"

The SZ have learnt that the cost will not be less than €3 billion.

Up to now following a feasability study from 2002 the cost was supposed be €1,85 billion.

Hard to believe that they've been basing the costs on a study done 6 years ago!

but the cost of the injunctions, delays, added planning costs and bad will ON TOP of the costs of the Transrapid if it goes ahead anyway will indeed cost us a lot more.

I really am in two minds about this. On the one hand I know that he Stratchclyde referendum in Scotland meant the Conservative government going ahead with water privatisattion in Scotland because it showed them just how unpopular the plan was. On the other hand, ineffective objections from borough councils across London introduced delays and soaring costs to Crossrail which will mean it will be completed late and at very much greater cost.

Does anyone know what will happen if we all vote Yes? Does Ude really have a possibility of stopping the Transrapid and getting the government to consider alternatives. Or is this just going to be a toothless and useless protest that just makes Munchkins feel smug about how right they are?

Last I read the Airport Company, withdrew its funding for the Transrapid in favor of the various Sbahn/Regional Express extension projects.

I'm sure Ude can do a lot to block/stop the TR, but his govt. (SPD) Is largely unpopular with the CSU which has an absolute majority among the
Bavarian electorate in many elections at the communal, state, and federal levels.

I don't much care if this Transrapid proposal passes or not. I'm more interested to know if people would agree that Munich's current S1/S8 train service from the airport into town is unacceptably slow for such a major city. This is bad for business, conventions and tourism here. Thus I would like to ask the naysayers, what alternative to the current proposal would you suggest? It is too easy simply to be against the current proposal, erstwhile ignoring a problem that must be addressed in some way.

Mods: If this is off topic, please feel free to move to a new or different thread.

If you did a little bit of a search, you would find that there is an alternative proposal for a faster S-Bahn, that doesn't stop as much and uses pretty much the existing infrastructure. The current S-Bahn is too slow, I think we're all agreed on that, but the Express S-Bahn would, I believe halve the current journey time at considerably less cost.

Its not off topic, but it has been discussed before.

Yes, the current S1/S8 service to/from the airport sucks.

As for the alternative, have a read around the various Transrapid threads. The biggest and most popular project currently
on the books would see the current S2 extended from Erding to the airport. Along with that there would also be new Regional
express services from Ostbahnhof (Stopping in Riem, Markt Schwaben (maybe) and Erding) This is just one of the new lines being proposed.

Until that project is finished, there would be an express S-Bahn running on the current S1 or S8 lines

absolutely. Its a disgrace to have such a world class airport of staggering modernity and efficiency served by a slow slow toy train.

hmmmm, sounds a bit too much like the Gatwick Express for my liking (shudder!). Surely a dedicated line with supermodern trains would be better (ie more like Heathrow Express?)

Sure, but you know what? Providing each arriving passenger with a pony that rides on a bed of rose petals would be even better. Then again, ponies are somewhat slow, better make them cyborg ponies. Perhaps with Lasers.

Bavarian Prime Minister Beckstein is expected to trash the project in a press conference later today, according to Bayern3 radio news. Anyone up for a spontaneous drink?

Is that the sound of backpedalling I can hear?

According to the SZ it is going to be a cent or two more expensive than orginally estimated.

Nice to see common sense prevail!