Stuttgart 21 rail project to cost extra €1.1 bln

Published: 12 Dec 12 16:36 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20121212-46735.html

The controversial railway development Stuttgart 21 is expected to cost around €1.1 billion more than originally planned, Deutsche Bahn said on Wednesday. The figure pushes the project's final price tag to at least €5.6 billion.

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Stuttgart 21 aims to transform the Baden-Württemberg state capital into a major European transport hub by laying 57 kilometres of new track and rebuilding the city’s main train station underground.

Germany's national railway operator Deutsche Bahn previously estimated it would cost around €4.5 billion, but now the extra billion has to be found.

“The economic viability of the project is decreasing, but it will not go negative,” said Deutsche Bahn manager Volker Kefer.

He added that while there was a chance that this figure could increase further, there was also a chance that the costs could be cut by as much as €200 million.

Baden-Württemberg state premier Winfried Kretschmann said that if Deutsche Bahn's estimation was correct, the company would have to pay the difference themselves. “This is due to planning errors by the Bahn,” he said.

Criticism of the massive rail project has come from many sides, including environmentalists who voiced concern about the effect the building work could have on the area. Violent protests rocked the southwestern city in 2011 after the police cleared a demonstrators' camp.

DPA/DAPD/The Local/jcw

What do you think? Leave your comment below.

Your comments about this article:

19:06 December 12, 2012 by Englishted

€5.6 billion they could have built a bigger one than the one in photo or is that girl really that big ?.

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19:54 December 12, 2012 by Tonne

On the other hand @Englishted it's one hellof a price for a model train set.

On the bright side, at least €1.1 bn should provide more work and more employment.

Report abuse »

20:49 December 12, 2012 by chicagolive

The problem is most of the extra cost was caused by the people in office and their scare tactics this station could be almost done if it was not for those fools. I dislike DB but I have to say if you lived in Stuttgart and did not know this was being built 20 years ago when it was put out for planning and came out and protested they should pay. DB had this out for public discussion for over a decade directly in the train station with a giant sign saying come state or approval or objections. A friend of mine worked in that center for one year and said 90% of the people had no issue until the greens brought the enviro scare tactics.

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09:46 December 13, 2012 by twisted

Frankly, I'm not surprised by the price increase....just look at what has happened in Hamburg with the Elbe Philharmonie and the Berlin airport. Seems to me that perhaps something is lacking in the education of engineers and building estimators. Or on the other hand, it is simply companies bidding low knowing full well that the plans were badly designed and can see huge modifications to the original contract AND the price.

Report abuse »

10:13 December 13, 2012 by TheWonderer

The problem is that a station 4x as big (Berlin) cost just 1/4 of this station.

Another aspect is that the new capacity is LESS than the old - which results in legal problems: They claim European subsidies for improvement, but when the capacity goes down they will lo0se them (=> additional cost).

We all know that projects cost much more than planned.

But if you stand there bragging about the best planned project ever and cost explodes before it even really started it is only very, very embarrassing.

Furthermore, it had been planned in the past but cancelled as being non economic.

Now it is more expensive and shall be economic...?

Have all those politicians sign up for the debt with their PRIVATE money and they will stop it tonight.

At the time being, it is just a bloody Taj Mahal for certain politicians that did nothing else worth remembering...

TheWonderer

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