After years of delays, a new S-Bahn line is set to start running between north and south Berlin this winter. Well, at least part of the new route.
On December 14 the new S21 S-Bahn which should eventually connect Berlin’s northern Wedding district with the southern districts of Schöneberg and Sudkreuz, will partially begin service.
The project has been underway since 2011 and an initial opening was planned for 2017. Now, after a seven-year delay, only part of the route will begin service on December 14, connecting Gesundbrunnen station with Berlin Hauptbahnhof via Wedding.
For now, an opening date for Perleberger Brücke, a new train station between Gesundbrunnen and Berlin, Hauptbahnhof has not been set. Authorities in the German city only recently commissioned works on the new station and extensive building to retrofit the platforms is now underway.
Since Deutsche Bahn announced its plans to develop the S21 line there have been concerns about the underground route, which crosses directly below Berlin's memorial to Sinti and Roma people murdered in the Holocaust.
The German government only officially recognised the Nazi murder of 500.000 Roma and Sinti people as genocide in 1982 and the memorial was opened in 2012. Head of the Central Council of Sinti and Roma in Germany, Romani Rose, has called the plan to build the S21 directly below the memorial “inconceivable”.
Deutsche Bahn has now officially applied for planning permission and promised in a press release that, “the memorial will not be touched”. It is expected to be three more years before the city of Berlin decides whether or not to grant planning permission.
Thumb image credit: buksinski.photo / Shutterstock.com