European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 28, 1969, Darmstadt, Hesse Europe in a Jam Frankfurt a Bahn is part of underground fever that has hit major German the tightening noose traffic parking on courthouse Steps might be in protest to Lack of proper parking space f continued from Page 11 opposed. The inhabitants of Central Brus Sels have fled to the suburbs leaving the City deserted at night. Shopping centers Are going up in the suburbs. Underground tunnels for vehicles have been built and a subways under construction. The first line of the subway will connect Central Brus Sels with common Market Headquarters there is still a traffic bombers provided plenty of parking lots for West Berlin and Park my is not a serious problem. In Addi Tion to the parking on Sites levelled during the War All new housing devel Poge 12 a pm ends provide one parking space for each apartment. There Are 400,000 automobiles in Westerlin for a population of 2,200,000, but no serious traffic problem. Streetcars have been eliminated and the City has Long had an efficient subway. German introduced the High Speed autobahn and Berlin s streets have been designed wit similar foresight. Tourists find Warsaw a parking Paradise with space readily available even on the busiest streets. There Are Only about 46,000 cars for a population of 1,350,000. The City in t even plan Ning parking garages until 1975. Fry piter Kuhrt staff writ dig that sub Way 1that s the cry of City planners and transit experts As pc Tili everywhere Are suffering traffic Selitri Ojeil and clotting of the 6 arteries and Are Ido King desperately for new approaches to Urban mass transportation. With chronic congestion both on the ground and in the skies going under ground often seems the Only Way it has brought on a Renaissance of the Good old subway whose advantages and conveniences were already appreciated in the horse and buggy Era when no one was in any particular hurry to get anywhere Montreal Washington san Francisco but pts. Rotterdam Frankfurt and Munich kit ids of both sides of the at Lanti 5 Are planning or building under grow neg or have partly completed them., y in West Germany Frankfurt the Hub of the Rhine main area opened the first leg of its combination subway Streetcar network on oct. 4 after More than five years of construction. It became an immediate attraction More than 450,000 frankfurters went for Joy rides on the Rod White trains in the first three Days be. Fore things settled Down. The first line from the downtown Haupt Wache to the Nordnes Tistadt sub Urb is 5.5 Miles Long a distance travelled by the three car 700-seat a Bahn i about 19 minutes. Trains normally Are scheduled 10 minutes apart but they run every 7% minutes at Peak traffic hours or Only every 3 minutes if the streetcars running on the same tracks Are , the a Bahn network will be 20 Miles Long by 1987, according to present blueprints. Because of financial limitations Frank Furt could t commit itself to a Bona fide subway and neither could the Cit afford to put the tracks below Street level All the elevated train system to be financed and operated by the bundles Bahn the Federal railways later will link up incoming commuter rail traffic to the municipal a Bahn network. Munich Bavaria s capital is no completing 2.8 Miles of stad Bahn Tunnel from the downtown Karls Platz better known As the Stachus to the Hacker Bridge. A troublesome Engineer ing feat this part of the underground project alone will have devoured $135million by the time the first train Rolls through. Operation big u might be solution to als so building is the North South trunk of the a Bahn with a length of about 5 Miles and 15 stations which will be completed in 1971. The follow Uig year the 2.5-mile olympic line downtown with the Oberliesen Feid olympic sports Cente has to be ready. At an additional Price tag of $42 v n in Fusbahn project is the so called Bann the v stands for Verbi dung " meaning connection from the main Munich must Complete a Bahn by the stars and stripes e1972 for summer olympic game Railroad station to the Ost Bohnhof also distance of 2.5 Miles. Munich s Long Range a Bahn project ions extend to the year 1990, but by Lien a lot of Beer will have been Guz led at the Hof bauhaus and who nows whether subways won t be com merely outmoded by then speculated me official. Hamburg with a population of Early 1.9 million West Germany s Sec my largest City and most important seaport has had a a Bahn since 1909. Except during world War a construct Ion never really stopped although the Ity did t Bear Down on it again until.962. Recently the Halfway Mark was Assed on the first new line with 18tations and a length of 9.6 Miles. The Arget Date for this Section is 1972. Cologne engineers had to strengthen the foundations of the Rhine liver City s most famous landmark lie 528-foot-High Cathedral before they Unn eled under the downtown District for 4.6 Miles beginning in 1963. Here Foo the Streetcar tracks were lowered into the basement to alleviate Street level pressure to the tune of $53 the Center of the Krupp Empire and heart of the steel and Coa Ruhr District also is transplanting its trams below the pavement at least3.5 Miles of track. But the tunnels Are being carved wide enough to accommodate an honest to goodness a Bahn i future City fathers Are convinced that at some Day not too Distant the densely populated Ruhr area will be welded into a single metropolitan District the size of greater London. When that Day comes Essen wants to be ready with Ai modern transit system which can be integrated easily in an Over All Urbani transportation network. Stuttgart the Hilly capital of Baden Wuerttemberg wants to retain its efficient Streetcar system because the City s roller coaster terrain makes a switch to buses unfeasible. Of 86 Miles of Strasse Bahn tracks Only 11 Miles will be relocated below Street level atan estimated Post of $175 million. The first Tunnel segment of the a Strab an abbreviation of Unte Pflaster Strasse Bahn or below pavement Streetcar was finished in 1967. Hannover the capital of lower Saxony officially started ils a Bahn dig in in late 1965, but Progress has been exceedingly show. Disagreements Over the financing Between the City Testate and Bonn have been the prime reason for the ground for the new u Rush hour chaos parking exhaust fumes. Bahn was broken in october 1967. The first trains Are supposed to take to the 2.5-mile-Long tracks in 1972. Of the total Cost of $37.5 million the Federal government will pay nearly $22 million the state of North Rhine Westphalia about $14.2 million while the City of Bonn is to come up with the remainder. In addition to All these projects the City of West Berlin has been steadily expanding and improving its a Bahn to the Point where it is now considered among the fastest and most efficient subway systems in the municipal rail system has been operating in Berlin since 1878, while subway construction started during world War i with the first line in serv ice in 1923. The undisputed grand old lady of the subways though is London s under ground which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1963 and shows no signs of slowing Down in its Job of hauling More than 2 million passengers each weekday. Paris famed metro opened its firs line ill 1898, Between Porte Maillot and Porte de Vincennes and meanwhile transports almost 1.2 billion riders annually exceeded Only by the Newyork City subway. New York enjoyed the benefits of a elevated train system by the 1870s. As real estate became a scarce commod Ity on Manhattan Island builders had no Choice but go up while transit authorities were forced below. The first line from the Bron through Manhattan to Brooklyn under the East River was tackled at the turn of the Century and completed in stages the following years. But it was not until 1913 that the City Laid out and started work on the present subway system which is used by 4.5 million weekday riders other . Cities with rapid transit systems Are Boston which has the old est Philadelphia Cleveland and Chi Cago while work is in Progress in Sanfrancisco Washington d.c., and Cam Den . But several other communities Are tossing the idea around among them Atlanta los Angeles Baltimore St. Louis and Pittsburgh. One fact is Plain those cities which do have an efficient rapid transit sys tem can no longer do without subway strike in new York As has been grimly demonstrated brings the entire City almost to a standstill and the same holds True of other major population centers with heavy commuter traffic. In Italy the Rule of the roman Road is every Man for Nail and choke by John Krueger staff writer if you re going to see Naples Anddie it la probably be from traffic Jam fact much of Italy and most of Europe seems to be gasping on the rink of a congestive catastrophe. Now however it has become More than just daily National spasms As in Italy to Sharpen the destructive instincts of those engaged in the four times a Day pastime of Rush hour Roulette inthe morning Home again and Back for afternoon lunch and siesta and the final furious Stampede in the evening. It is strongly suspected that the chaotic motoring conditions have contributed More than their fury frustrating share toward the 35 per cent slide in the nuni Ber of tourists in such celebrated Scenic enters As Naples. Just like Milan is the Way Man now explain their aversion to Naples with its teeming traffic and noxious smokestacks. Naples has always rep resented a mixture of the Good the bad and the Beautiful but now tourist authorities Are wondering if it has t turned into an ugly depressing duckling. Overall it was admittedly a bad Yea for tourism in Europe with the drop especially noticeable in the Mediterranean area where there has been heavy investment in the Prospect of mass tour ism in the but now that Sun is sometimes hid Den behind layers of smog As Italy s drive to industrialize the South continues to pay off from Naples to Taranto. The rub is can you have your tourist cake while continually eating into it with fac tory Teeth networks of new turnpikes Are lacing the Boot Ever tighter which should make vast areas of Rustico East coast on the Adriatic thriving tourist territory within the next few years. To reach these areas now Means Long torturous hours on serpentine Seaside roads usually behind trucks belching nauseous diesel fumes. So the Battle Between tourism and its sister industries is waged Ever on the highways. Tuesday in Ory 28, 1969 the stars and stripes tourism is attacking the vast stretches of open beaches Between the Adriatic villages with vengeance throwing up great blocks of apartments and hotels. The building Boom has prompted demonstrations by protesters alarmed at the unregulated new construction in such romantic idols As Capri and Sorrento. But any Boom in Italy strictly play second sonic fiddle to the noise and confusion of its metropolitan traffic. And if it weren t for Italy s mini cars there would t even be room in Rome for dome. J. He Rule of the roman Road is every Man for one intrepid ital Ian confessed that he considered each trip to and from the office a half hour of the trouble with Rome be moan its nerve shattered citizens is that it s growing too have been jarred by the recently released statistics showing that the population now tops 2.7 million. This is expected to double in the next 10 Yeasas suburban satellites of some 30,000 population each keep popping up regularly to add to the density. Meanwhile Rome continues its on and off fight to keep its historic Center free from traffic while foreign visitor continue to Puzzle at the failure to finally get rid of those two extra afternoon rus hours by eliminating the traditional is one pundit put it Rome s monumental problems in eluding its $1.6 billion debit Are matched Only by the monumental indifference of most romans toward the eternal City s eternal rattled roman rationalized the turmoil of cars pressing an panting apart from making us concerned with our safety makes us als concerned with the life of today. Even in our romantic Little squares we Are distracted from All the venerable things which time has accumulated Page 13
