Continuation: Transport

The old Lehrter Bahnhof is being extended and rebuilt to plans by the architectural partnership of Gerkan, Marg and Partner and will be the central station in Berlin, which will be a crossing point for routes in the European railway network. Regional train services, urban railway and tram routes will also meet here. The national government is investing 10 billion DM in the development of Berlin as a railway centre. Just the nine kilometre north-to-south line, with its 3.5 kilometre section below ground south of Lehrter Bahnhof passing under the Spree, the Tiergarten and Potsdamer Platz, accounts for 4 billion DM. This link, which is scheduled to be completed in 2005, will reduce travelling time from Hamburg to Dresden, for example, by 45 minutes. For the expected volume of 50 million railway travellers per year, Berlin will then have eight stations for long-distance trains.

The large scale airport Berlin-Brandenburg International (BBI), with its estimated investment volume of 6 billion DM, is planned to take the entire air transport in the Berlin area from 2007, and the city airports of Tegel and Tempelhof are planned to be closed. In its first construction phase, the BBI is designed for 20 million passengers, extension work to a capacity of 30 million passengers can be carried out when necessary. From the future main airport, passengers will be able to reach Lehrter Bahnhof in just under 30 minutes.

The interlinked waterway network in Berlin with the Spree, the Havel and a large number of canals with an overall length of about 190 kilometres and the ports spread through the city can be used for both cargo transport and tourism. In 1998, about seven million tonnes of cargo were transported on the waterways via 15 public ports – with Westhafen as the largest port in the city – and about 50 factory cargo handling sites.