this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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Yeah that’s a fair point but most people in these countries still live in the capitols. Connecting Amsterdam and Berlin for example with HSR would allow millions to travel quickly. I get it we should focus first on getting the countries connected, but it can’t hurt to sign this.
Well for Berlin, the City proper has a population of 3.6 million (~ 4.2% of Germans) and the larger metropolitan area has about 6.1 m (~ 7.2%).
Contrast that to the Ruhr area that has a metropolitan area with 10.6m population (~ 12%).
Also outside those areas, western Germany is more densely populated that the east around Berlin.
While I don't necessarily agree with this ECI, keep in mind that Germany's decentralisation is the exception in Europe, rather than the norm. In most other countries the population is concentrated in a few cities only.
Of course, why would you want to incentivize and reward that centralisation by making the capitals even more appealing by focusing HSR expansion there? That's another question.
No they don't, most people live outside of the capitals.
Amsterdam-Berlin is vanity project that is a diservice to both the Netherlands and Germany. The only benefactors are Amsterdam and Berlin
I wrote it badly, sorry about that of course I know that most people in germany don‘t live in berlin. I was just trying to say that it definitely is still worth it to connect these cities at some point, but currently there absolutely are more important projects.
At somepoint probably yeah. Unfortunately, it does seem that Amsterdam-Berlin seems to be pushed for a lot, and I fear for that poor decision fucking up the rest of the raillines.
An Amsterdam-hamburg-berlin line makes more sense imo, especially when you push it more towards the north as it doesn't cut the countries in half. It also gives you possibility to expand both north towards scandanavia, which you can extend further south to the rest of europe, or eastern europe through berlin.
But I doubt that will happen, because that is a bit slower than through hanover
What would you think of a Berlin-Hamburg-Groningen-Amsterdam high-speed connection (if Germany is arsed to fix that bridge outside Leer)?
I personally like it, although it is good to check what the optimal place of the stations is. It should be both benefitial to the North of Germany and the North of the Netherlands, and connect as many people in that area. So maybe you'd need an additional station near Oldenberg or Bremen to not skip over too much of east Germany.
If you also place a High speed line south from Amsterdam-Essen-(further south like) and Essen-Hanover-Hamburg, you have most of that area covered.
But my guess is that they'd build an Amsterdam-Hanover-Berlin line, especially when they don't plan ahead.
This could route still stop at Hannover, which is well-linked to Hamburg and if they actually build a new, more northern route than the existing one, other trains could use the route, too. Or the train from Copenhagen to Amsterdam stops in Hamburg.
The Ruhr area is already served an ICE connection from Cologne to Amsterdam.
It's not a vanity project at all.