Jesse Simon takes a ride on the newest addition to Berlin’s public transit network…
Brandenburg Airport may have hogged the headlines with its combination of political intrigue and gross ineptitude, but the long-awaited U5 extension is arguably a finer example of Berlin’s leisurely approach to public works projects.
The new line, which connects the central rail station (Hauptbahnhof) with the tourist and transport nexus of Alexanderplatz, has been in the works for nearly twenty years and, for much of the past decade, the central promenade of Unter den Linden—once famed as Berlin’s most beautiful street—was rendered inaccessible by unsightly fences bearing optimistic estimates of when the work would be complete.
When the extension finally opened at the beginning of December, it was met with a mixture of excitement and relief. On the day of the grand opening, platforms at the new Unter den Linden and Rotes Rathaus stations were swarmed with television crews and enthusiastic Berliners documenting the moment with cameras and phones.
Out on the street, staff members with special U5 face-masks handed out commemorative sweets, and a group of sentimental train-spotters gathered on the platform of Französische Straße station—supplanted after 97 years by the new station a few dozen metres to the North—to watch the first trains pass through without stopping.
It was an historic day, and the fanfare was undoubtedly well-deserved. But once the initial rush of enthusiasm had faded, one was left with the inescapable notion that the extension was concerned more with the city’s international image than the needs of its own citizens.
When the U5 first opened in 1930, it ran from Alexanderplatz eastward toward Friedrichsfelde, and after the city was divided, it was the only U-bahn line located solely in East Berlin; it was, in fact, one of only two U-bahn lines serving the East German capital, which relied more heavily on the S-bahn and its complex tram network. Although the line was extended further east to Hönow during the DDR era, Alexanderplatz remained its Western terminus.
In the West, however, planners at the BVG—the West Berlin transport authority back then—had drawn up a long-term plan for the U-bahn that accounted for the possibility of a reunified city. In addition to a hypothetical new line from Steglitz to Prenzlauer Berg, the plan included an extension to the U5 that would run from the city centre to Tegel airport, meeting the U9 at Turmstraße and the U7 at Jungfernheide. Platforms were even constructed at the two transfer stations, although they have never been used.
After 1991, when Berlin resumed its role as the capital of a unified Germany, plans for the U5 extension were quickly revived. The new part of the line would run beneath Unter den Linden, through the new Bundestag complex and the Hauptbahnhof—both then under construction—and onward to Tegel, perhaps one day extending even further to Rathaus Reinickendorf.
It was a brilliant i…