• AutoTL;DRB
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    511 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Plans for a driverless magnetic train that would swoop through Berlin and carry passengers and goods are under way as part of the local government’s attempts to boost the German capital’s green credentials.

    At a time when Berlin’s transport company, the BVG, is so short of drivers that it has reduced its timetable by about 7%, Stettner said the fact that the train was self-driving as well as cheaper and easier to construct than an underground line was a further advantage.

    It was dismantled in 1991, two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, to allow for the restoration of the U2 underground line, which had been cauterised by the erection of the notorious cold war barrier that cut the city in two.

    At a recent presentation of his plans, including slick architectural sketches, Stettner said there were many ideas on how to practically make use of a new M-Bahn in a city that retained the scars of division.

    Last month Germany’s highest court blocked the federal government’s plan to shift leftover Covid-era aid to fund projects to tackle the climate emergency, leaving many policy decisions in limbo.

    “If the funds survive the court’s earthquake decision, they should be used to finance efficient ways to reduce CO2 emissions, and to adapt to climate change, not for willy-nilly ‘perhaps nice-to-haves’,” it wrote in an editorial.


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