The new Wendlingen-Ulm line was a major investment.
Image: Deutsche Bahn AG
The traffic light government wants to invest more in rail than in road. Whether this is successful depends above all on how one calculates.
Dhe value of an item is primarily determined by its price. The supporters of “strong rail” know this too, and have been demanding for years that the state should finally invest more money in rail infrastructure. And not only more per se, but also in relation to the biggest competitor, the road. The motivation for this shift is obvious: It would probably be the clearest sign that the state is serious about the traffic turnaround. The coalition agreement between the SPD, Greens and FDP also contains the sentence: “We want to invest significantly more in rail than in road.” If you ask a year later what happened to this resolution, you get a thoroughly mixed picture : It depends crucially on how one calculates.
If you start the small survey with the donor, the FDP-led Federal Ministry of Transport, the answer is clear: “The federal government spends far more money on the rail mode of transport than on the road mode of transport,” says a ministry spokeswoman and calculates: For the new According to provisional figures, the federal government invested 7.1 billion euros last year in the expansion and maintenance of the rails, which would be less than the costs for the federal trunk roads.
