Berlin: Tram Or Maglev? A Real Debate

A strange transit showdown is brewing in Berlin: build a practical tram that stitches together everyday trips, or elevate a sleek maglev that sprints between a handful of stations. Louis spent the day on the ground from Spandau to the former Tegel Airport, walking the corridors, riding the buses, and mapping where people actually live, work, and wait. What he found is a city on the cusp of major growth with Urban Tech Republic rising at TXL and a vast new neighborhood at Gartenfeld, while current buses already strain under midday crowds.

Politics heats the debate, CDU and AfD push maglev, while SPD, the Left, and Greens favor the tram. The tram comes in around €120 million with strong federal co-funding; the maglev is already spending €80 million on a study and test track, with line estimates of €300–500 million and fuzzier funding. We also revisit Berlin’s brief M-Bahn maglev from 1989–91, and consider a gondola wildcard: useful in spots, but not a backbone for Spandau’s all-day demand.

If the story resonates, subscribe, share with a transit-minded friend, and leave a review—your support helps us bring more on-the-ground reporting to your feed.

Transcript

Setting The Dilemma: Tram Vs Maglev

SPEAKER_00 0:18

This week on Transit Tangents, we dive into a bizarre situation in Berlin where the city is trying to decide between building a new tram line or building a maglev. I went to Berlin to check out the neighborhoods this would affect and to learn more about the proposal. All of this and more coming up on Transit Tangents. Berlin is considering scrapping plans for a brand new tram network that would go literally right here through a western district of the city to instead pursue a maglev train. And if you think that that is a bizarre choice, you're definitely not the only one. Today I'm gonna head to Western Berlin in a district called Spandau to go find out what the heck is going on. We'll talk about the differences between these two options and a few others in terms of cost, capacity, as well as the impacts that they would have on the residents of the areas that it would run through. We'll also get into some good old-fashioned public transit political drama with members of the CDU who lead the governing coalition pushing for this change, while their junior partners, the SPD, are clearly against it. But first I have to get there, so I am hopping on this bright and early ICE train from Vienna with direct service all the way to Berlin-Haupenhof. To start, let's go over this tram proposal because it came first in this story. There are a few key reasons why this tram was proposed. The first is the airport sitting behind me, that actually isn't an airport anymore. In the mid-2010s, it became clear that the Tegel Airport was going to close. Plans had been put into place to transform it into a tech hub with offices, residential space, and more. That project today is called the UTR or the Urban Tech Republic. Clearly, these plans have yet to come to fruition, as you can see behind me, but at full build-out, there is going to be upwards of 20,000 residents and 10,000 employees to be located here. The big issue though is that this area is currently only served by buses. That's how I got here today, and the place that the bus actually dropped me off was pretty wild. Now, this is one of the bus stops that currently serves the airport. Admittedly, it is the one that is slightly further away, but if you can't tell, this is literally on the side of a highway. Behind me going by right now, I'm not sure if you'll be able to see it yet, is actually the other bus that serves this area and gets you a little bit closer, but it runs a little less frequently. Now, obviously, there's a lot of construction going on, so you could very easily reroute a bus to be closer to the UTR when it is fully opened. But even as it is today, the bus that I was riding ran on frequencies of every 10 minutes, and it was pretty full despite it being 11.30 in the morning midweek. So not exactly rushed hour, and even with 10-minute frequencies, the bus was packed. Capacity seems like it would be an issue here in the future. Both S Bahn and U-Bahn extensions have been proposed for this area over the years, but each time they've been written off just due to cost concerns. Overall, it's worth checking out the full master plan for this area as there could be a ton of potential revitalizing this now abandoned airport essentially into a major hub in the west part of Berlin. This brings us to the second major reason for the tram study, which is this massive new development behind me in the Gartenfeld area. In 2018, plans were put out there for this development behind me, which includes 4,000 new apartments being built. You can't see it all in this frame, but I tried to get some other shots of it. This development just goes on and on and on behind me. And we're talking, you know, upwards of 14 or 15 stories to some of these buildings. That would obviously be a huge influx of people in this pretty auto-centric part of town that is already quite busy with traffic. I'm seeing all sorts of people driving in their cars, but also a ton of industrial traffic, partly because of all the construction going on here, but also because there's quite a bit of industrial uses in the area. All of these people moving in when the construction is complete would certainly increase auto traffic in the area if no new rail connection was made. There currently are quite a few buses serving the area, but just in watching the bus stop midday here on a Thursday, the amount of people queuing up to wait for it, I'm not exaggerating here, has been 30 or 40 people waiting to get on a big bus. They are bendy buses coming through, so folks are being able to all get on each bus, but still that is a ton of folks waiting for buses. For me to get here today from the Tegel Airport area to here would have either required several buses taking me about 45 minutes to an hour, a 45 minute walk, or driving only 13 minutes. It's only four and a half kilometers away, and not having a direct connection between two areas in the future that will both be major hubs once the urban Tech Republic area is fully built out, as well as all the apartments behind me are fully built out, is going to be crucial. And with the numbers we're talking about, buses are just not going to cut it. Now, this is also a key area that's being discussed when it comes to the Maglev proposal. This is one of the few areas that members of the CDU who are proposing the Maglev are saying that a stop would be developed at. We'll get back to the Maglev shortly, but first let's get back to the final key reason for the tram proposal. Lastly, the 2019 Nakvakes Plan, which is basically the city's transit plan, began to put an emphasis more towards radio connections versus everything being focused on going in and out of downtown. It was around that time that this study began and ultimately was funded. There were other reasons as well, but these seem to be the main drivers in getting this study started. The study took a wide range of route options into consideration and narrowed them down to these. Sections of this map would be narrowed down further if this tram ultimately does get built, but this gives you an idea of the corridors that would be served. Starting in the northeast here at Kurt Schumacher Platz, we would have a connection with the U-6 U-Bahn line. The line would then head west to the former Tegal Airport, which is the site of the new UTR or Urban Tech Republic. The line would continue west with a variety of alignment options, getting between the airport and where I am here at the newest Gardenfeld area. All of these options would allow for a fairly quick tram because there are not many interruptions with streets. You generally can run either alongside an existing street or just blaze a new path through the airport area and have a pretty seamless connection right here. From the new Gardenfeld development area, the tram would continue to run west through some pretty dense residential areas that I checked out on the way over here. Lots of folks uh who live and work in these areas, and it would actually run directly over the bridge I'm standing on right now that already has the space set aside for a tram to go here. Right now, it's just a mix of grassy medians and parking in the middle of it. From there, the tram turns south all the way to Spendao, where I am currently sitting in a park right now, and eventually connects to the U-Bahn, S-Bahn, and regional trains about a kilometer that way. Now I just walked basically this entire stretch from the bridge all the way through Spandau because this section seems like the part that has the most space constraints. And while it is constrained, I still do think that it is very doable to have a dedicated tram line all the way through with very limited shared traffic space, if any. After the center median goes away, the street still does end up with a fairly wide right-of-way through quite a bit of this. You'll see a mixture of green space on either side of the road, really wide sidewalks, which I do like to see, but you could make the sidewalks slightly smaller. In a lot of the cases, I still saw street parking on both sides of the road, which is an easy thing to uh kind of get rid of where you can on this main thoroughfare. The last fairly complex area here in Spandau, this is a section where there are multiple route variations on the study, one of which basically goes right down the center of this very busy roundabout, and the other kind of forks off here behind me and runs through the old town of Spandau. To me, it makes a lot more sense to cut over through the old town and stop just short of the Spandau station here where you've got the connections to the U-Bahn and the S Bahn. There are already tunnels that go from this side of the major road down into the U-Bahn. You could, I'm sure, make the connection right over into the S-Bahn and regional trains, and you avoid needing to deal with this giant roundabout. There is already a stoplight intersection where people are crossing, so you could very easily adjust the timing of it for the trams to go across as well. They would be crossing the street faster than the people, so traffic shouldn't be any additional issue there. So I do think that this was one area that I did see highlighted by some members of the uh CDU who were complaining about the potential of the tram. And I think that this alternate route that runs through the old part of Spandau would kind of alleviate that concern. Not to mention that Schwandau here used to actually have quite an extensive tram network that also ran right down the section that is being proposed through this area. So it would actually be restoring it back to an area that historically did have a tram. Alright, now before we spend too much time just focused on the tram, it's time to get more into the details of the Maglev. Proposals for a Maglev train have been thrown around in Berlin over the last couple years, from as far as I can tell. But more recently, a push from CDU officials in the city government is what really caught my attention. For those of you from outside of Germany, the CDU is the party currently leading the governing coalition in Berlin's city government. The same is true at the national level. This is current Chancellor Friedrich Merz's party as well as former Chancellor Angola Merkel's party. Any specific details on this Maglev proposal are pretty few and far between, but generally speaking, the aim is to connect Spandau with the new Gartenfeld development, to the UTR, the Urban Tech Republic at the old airport, and potentially up to the U6 line where I kind of started my day earlier today. There is no exact alignment on how to make this happen, but this would have to be elevated and could look something like this. But to be totally honest, it is a complete guess. The key difference here is while this would be great for the people who live specifically at each of these stations or within a couple minute walk, the tram would hit so many more of these really dense populated residential areas that I kind of covered throughout the day today. And there are a lot more of them than I would have thought. Those folks would ultimately be left still catching a bus to be able to get to wherever they need to go, whereas a tram network in this case could really help connect more people to more places. City officials in recent weeks have announced that this Maglev proposal is being prioritized. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that the tram is canceled, but there is certainly a lot of language being used in a lot of these meetings that I'm reading about that paints the tram in a negative light. Now, despite my only A2 German at this point, I did go ahead and watch a couple of these city government meetings to kind of try to get a grasp of what exactly is going on. And with the help of some Google Translate, I kind of pulled together some of the top line information for you all to hear and get up to speed on what the actual officials here in Berlin have to say about this project. Therefore, we are testing the integration of the Maglev for these development zones. One solution could be, for example, a Maglev connection from the Urban Tech Republic towards Gartenfeld and Wasrostadt, and then certainly continuing across the Havel. We are currently examining this mode of transport regarding route alternatives, technical feasibility, and its integration into the region. A specific route plan which you asked for does not yet exist. That will be exactly a part of this study. However, the economic viability in the sense of the state budget code and potential federal grants must of course still be proven for a MAGLEV as well. After your remarks this morning during the QA session on the Maglev, I have to ask myself, are you actually in the right office, or are you just a marketing chief for the construction company of Max Bugle? The governing mayor wanted to make many things simply more extreme, but we would be much happier if you would finally tackle the actual bread and butter business of mobility and transport policy in Berlin. We certainly welcome the fact that the Senate is obviously moving away from the idea of a tram line, as this tram would have consumed far too much road space. Thousands of trees would have to be felled, two gardens would have to be demolished, and a beach would have disappeared. There were a couple more comments to choose from, but generally speaking, the members in support of the Maglev were from the AFD and the CDU, while supporters of the tram line were from the SPD, the left party, uh, as well as the Greens. So definitely interesting to hear the differing of opinions there. Now, as somebody who loves public transit and high-speed trains and all that sort of thing, to be honest, the idea of a maglev is just inherently cool. There's no getting around that. But the thing is, is it just feels like this is the absolute wrong application for it. The whole point of a maglev is that it can go really freaking fast, like way faster than basically anything on rails because it's levitating, there's no friction there. But in this case here, there it wouldn't even be able to get anywhere close to up to speed to do this. So the maglev feels like the wrong choice. If you wanted to have a higher capacity mode of transit that is grade separated, unlike the tram, you would do something like extend one of your existing S Bon or U-Bahn lines, which is a feasible option here. The only thing that has been ruled out in the past was because of expense. I'm not convinced that the maglev would somehow be any cheaper. If anything, you don't have any expertise in terms of constructing them. You don't already have a warehouse with parts for all the, you know, if anything were to go wrong maintenance-wise, like you already do with U-Bahn trains, S-Bahn trains, trams, buses. It would be a whole new skill set. It's not like you have a whole workforce of people who are skilled in building these, maintaining these, operating these, all sorts of these issues that all of a sudden you would now need to be custom doing for just this one little connection here in the far western part of Berlin. Now, obviously, the counter to that would be, well, we want to extend this, you know, further out, citywide, go bigger. It just doesn't seem like there's a need for it. It is actually really easy to get around Berlin. I've only been a handful of times at this point, but the transit network here in Berlin is very easy to use, very extensive, very frequent. I don't think adding a maglev component is going to change that versus the existing rail infrastructure of the U-Bahns and S-Bahns. To be fair though, to counter myself on the maintenance and know-how, Berlin actually did used to have a maglev train. Full disclosure, I had every intention of showing off the exact location of the Magnet Schwebbahn that was here before, or the Maglev, the M-Bahn. My phone is like dead, dead, fully dead, and I don't have it all memorized. So instead, you get me explaining it here at home. In 1989, the M-Bahn opened, running just a short 1.6 kilometer route. It operated publicly for just two years, partly because when the Berlin Wall fell, restoring the former U-Bahn line that ran through this area made the most sense, and it required the right-of-way that was then being occupied by the M-Bahn. Anyway, I do appreciate the vision required to try to push for an idea like a Maglev train, but let's do it in a place where it actually makes sense, like connecting multiple cities that are further away where the maglev would actually be able to get up to speed and you would be able to reap the benefits of it, versus in this case when to me it really feels like an extension of an S-bon or an U-Bahn line would achieve the exact same goals and likely at a lower cost, but with proven technology. Speaking of cost, let's do a cost breakdown on the two different options here between the tram and the MACLEV. According to the local transport plan that we mentioned earlier in the episode, the cost to construct this tram network would be roughly 120 million euros. That ends up at approximately 15 to 20 million euros per kilometer, which is pretty standard when we look at other tram extensions that have happened in the Berlin area recently. As far as how it would be paid for goes, I'm simplifying things a little bit here, but generally speaking, only 20% or so of this project would have actually had to have been covered by the city of Berlin, with the remaining roughly 80% being covered by the federal government. The Maglev, on the other hand, is an entirely different story.$80 million is being spent just on this study and to construct a small test track to be able to prove the concept. This entire line would also need to be elevated, making it much more expensive. Given that this is some sort of new idea and not a standard part of a regional transportation plan or anything like that, it is also highly likely that the city would need to foot more of the bill here because I'm not sure that the federal government would be interested in investing in something like this. Given that we have way less information about this project in terms of specifics, we also have less of an idea in terms of cost, but the the estimates vary uh from 300 million euros on the low end to 500 million on the higher end. So even, you know, at the best guess here, we are more than twice the amount of the cost of the tram proposal. For a system that arguably would serve less people, the tram would have many more stops along the route and be able to encompass many more of the kind of dense residential and commercial developments along the line, whereas the M-Bahn or the Maglev would only encompass a few stops along the way. You could make the argument that those stops would be better served by the Maglev proposal because they will have less stops to be able to move faster between the areas uh that are being connected here. But at what cost? Because we don't even know how long this thing would take to construct, um, and again, what the ultimate price tag will be. A tram, we have a pretty good idea of how long it would take to build. In Germany, there are trams being built all of the time. The technology is there, the know-how is there. With a maglev, that just does not exist, so we have no idea what the construction timetable would look like. All right, moving on to one more proposal that is definitely way less serious, but I wanted to include it here anyway. At one of the meetings about this in the Berlin City Council, the equivalent of the Berlin City Council, uh, a member of the AFD brought up the recent extension of the Metro line in Paris that we actually went and wrote a couple weeks ago. You can go check out that episode if you haven't already. I honestly really highly recommend it. We actually had an interview with someone who worked on the project as well. Uh, but asking if something like the C1 gondola cable car in Paris could be applicable for this area. Let's take a listen to what he said. In this respect, the elevated construction style is a good approach from our perspective. The question we have, however, is was it also examined whether a gondola cable car could have been used instead of a maglev, similar to what we have recently seen in Paris? A gondola is first mostly more cost effective and secondly has smaller pillar supports, which makes it even easier to implement from a planning law perspective. So definitely interesting to hear it brought up. As far as if it works in this area or not, I have mixed feelings. I mean, I think you could use it as uh a connection for a couple different spots along the way, but as something that would run this whole route, it would definitely run into capacity issues. Uh a tram has a much higher capacity than a gondola does, and I would be worried that at peak times you would end up with way too many people trying to ride this than would be able to fit on a gondola moving through the area. So while I do love gondolas, and I think that there are definitely places in this area where you probably could make an argument for a gondola, the tram really does make the most sense here in terms of uh both cost, capacity, and just making the connections to all of the different places that would be needed here. I hope you all really enjoyed this video. I know I had a lot of fun making it. I had this idea for a couple weeks now after I saw the Maglev stuff being posted on Twitter and I saw a couple articles getting shared around of it, and I knew I had to kind of come and do it. I spent hours just like drawing out maps of all of this stuff and trying to translate the studies from German into English, and it was a really exciting one for me, and I'm really glad that I did it. I want to be able to spend more time doing stuff like this versus editing videos for other work that I do. Um, so if you want to help make it so that we can spend more time creating really awesome content for transit tangents and you're able to help support the show, the best way to do so is via our Patreon. I have done a little bit of behind the scenes uh and some extended elements to this video for folks on Patreon. You'll also get it if you become a member here on YouTube. We kind of just turned that one on more recently. I'm trying to get better about doing that, but those are both great ways to support the show. If there are other cool projects, transit lines, unique things in your city, uh definitely let us know. Whether you're in the US, Chris can go check it out, whether you're in Germany or somewhere else in Europe. Maybe I can come check it out. Uh we would love to hear it. So definitely let us know in the comments. We really Enjoy reading them and we oftentimes use suggestions from the comments to make videos. A couple weeks ago we did an episode talking about uh an extension in Miami, that was from the comments. We did one talking about an extension in St. Louis, that one was from the comments. So we really do read them and it helps give us more ideas because now we've been doing this for so long, we're running out of our initial list. So uh every little bit helps. Hope you all really enjoyed this. Thank you all so much for watching and enjoy the rest of your Transit Tangents Tuesday.