Another of the cities I stopped off at on my holiday was Munich and I was surprised by just how much I really enjoyed it (and not just from all of the beer and pretzels at the beer gardens 
). We had a great time looking around the city including spending way too much time, but also no where near enough in the Deutsches Museum (my wife really regretted suggesting we go there). But apart from the touristy things, there were a few bits about the city that really stood out to me that are of relevance to this blog, the key ones being the cities built form and transport.
Built Form
Firstly it is interesting to learn that both the urban population and the size of the urban area is not that much different to Auckland, although the surrounding countryside has a lot of towns and villages that boosts the population of the region quite a bit. The other thing is that compared to many of the other European cities I visited, Munich has a lot of newer buildings. This is probably largely are result of WW2 where about 50% of the city and 90% of the city centre was destroyed forcing new construction and it is the mix of old and new that caught my attention as many of those 1950s buildings are now being replaced with more modern ones. Old and new buildings in the city don’t seem as out of place next to each other which may be due to them being the same height as the more historic buildings they are next, but some of you readers are probably more experts on this.
The other thing you will notice with the photo above is the pedestrian area. The area in the heart of the city runs for about 800m between two public plazas and was packed with people. It is actually quite wide and easily felt as if you could fit four lanes of traffic down it (sound familiar). It did used to have traffic down it but in the 1970s it was pedestrianised and it is now one of the busiest pedestrian and also shopping areas in all of Germany. Because of this success many of the neighbouring streets and lanes have either had similar treatment or at least significant pedestrian improvements. To me this is exactly how I feel that Queen St should be and while we aren’t about to pedestrianise it just yet, at least we have started improving some of the nearby side streets with shared spaces.
Transport
The other day I had a look at how the Paris metro would look in Auckland, of course Paris has a massive population to support the system so it is a bit unrealistic to ever expect that we would develop a rail system like that in Auckland. Munich on the other had is much closer to Auckland so I found it a great place to learn from. Munich has a system of buses and trams at street level but also has two quite extensive rail systems.
The first is the S-Bahn which is a network of rail lines that heads out through the suburbs from the east and west of the city and into the countryside servicing the many small towns and villages I mentioned earlier. Up until the 1970s each of the lines terminated at one of the stations on either side of the city however spurred on by the upcoming Munich Olympics a tunnel was built to connect the two main stations. As a result the lines have been joined up together and run through from one side of the region to the other, passing through the city centre on the way (the tunnel runs directly below the pedestrian area above). In many ways this is similar to what we are looking to do with the CRL and linking up our existing lines into a couple of routes will help to make the system much more efficient. the S-Bahn is the green network in the image below.
The other rail network that exists is the U-Bahn which is a metro system and is in blue above. It was also built for the Olympics in the 70′s so in comparison to Paris is quite new. Again what I really likes about the U-Bahn was that the various lines joined together when going through the city which increases the frequencies for the most dense part of the city. Off peak each line would run at 10 minute frequencies but of course that doubled up in the sections were two lines joined together. With the various lines interconnecting at various places they also form a bit of a grid and combined with the rest of the PT network, makes it quick easy to get across the city with just a transfer or two. Using the systems of both Munich and Vienna really helped me to decide on how I think our rail network should eventually develop but I will leave that a future post.
But it isn’t just the network that is interesting. A lot of effort has also gone in to making the various stations unique, attractive and usable. The photo below is of one of the stations I visited but there are lots of other examples of interesting stations on the Wikipedia page linked to above.
But it is often the little things that make a difference when travelling. Here you can see a small diagram that is on the covers of the power supply that gives a reminder as to what direction the trains travel. This is surprisingly useful when underground as while you have directions to the correct platform, you don’t always realise which side the train will come from.
All up I had a great time in Munich and can easily see why if often rates highly as very liveable city and there is lots that we can learn from.
What a rational layout that S-Bahn has for a suburban network! Also links to the airport. Well we can head towards this level of service and as you point out, there’s the payoff in the city streets.
Another example of how clever the CRL is, how linking and uniting the existing network is the key to a new Auckland. A bargain.
Note that there is an S-bahn and a U-Bahn (and that it is the S-bahn that goes to the airport)
There comes a point at which an all stops metro is not attractive to users as it just takes too long to get to the middle, and a mix of outer/semi-fast and inner/all stops services are required.
The U5 and S7 routes on the map are good examples of this, as are S1 and U2, U3.
If we are to take a long term view for Auckland we also need to consider if we are to have only a pure all-stops metro, or to have in addition something that offers more reasonable journey times further out: particularly if we are considering significant development further out. If we are, how far out should an all stops / ‘inner’ / U Bahn / metro service go, and where does the ‘outer’/ S Bahn service interact?
The S-bahn could go a seperate route or use the other pair of a four track route. Either we we should be considering routes and land-take, and passive provision in bridge construction. Such a semi-fast/outer service could go through the CRL or could terminate and use the remaining three bay platforms at Britomart, but if that scenario is pursued, then a similar outer service for the Western line does point to a need for bay platformss at the other end of Britomart.
Why should we go down that route?
Well, if with decelration, acceleration and dwell maybe 1½ mins per call can be saved, a first-stop Otahuhu service could be 10 minutes faster to Otahuhu than an all stops one. That’s a 40% time saving.
Further south, if such a service only called at a select few other stations en route to Papakura – the ones selected for the park and ride car parks and the bus hubs – more time could be saved.
Yes, of course! But watch as even the existing rail reserves get gobbled up, already recently on the Southern Line and the Eastern Line [no fourth line possible now through Panmure]. Right now we are fighting people who refuse to believe there is any need or advantage in expanding rail let alone getting these powerful idiots to understand the possible and likely scale of future demand.
Things are always possible. It is just that the cost of doing them starts to get prohibitive if sensible safeguarding has not taken place.
Nice post – sounds like a fantastic trip!
Two useful links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_U-Bahn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_S-Bahn
Judging from the U-Bahn map, its physical coverage seems to be about the same as the Auckland Isthmus. I understand that the population of the city proper is 1.3m or so, with 2.5m or so in the city-plus-wider conurbation; it would be helpful to have this confirmed. I visited there last year, really liked the place. Thanx for the reminder!
Some random comments.
First some important travel tips:
If you commemorate Kiwi-day (20.9. or the Thursday before Oktoberfest) take the S8 to Hersching and walk up the holy mountain to Andechs.
You can reach Oktoberfest not only via U5 via station Theresienwiese, but instead use U3 or U6 and get off at Goetheplatz or Poccistraße or take any S-Bahn and get off at Hackerbrücke. It is only a short 5-min walk and on a Saturday the station Theresienwiese is often overcrowded, so in the end the other options are faster. Just follow the masses and Prost!
Ross, your number are about right. In addition the area of Munich is only 310 km², whereas the area covered by the Munich transport authority MVV is 5.470 km², so the dimension of the map are quite stretched. The spacing between stations of the S-Bahn are therefore much bigger in the outskirts.The end points of the S-Bahn are roughly 40-50km from the city centre. Also often only every second train goes to the end of the line, the other trains stop a few stations earlier.
It is interesting to note that the trams and U-Bahn are owned and operated by the city of Munich and therefore stay for this reason within the city borders (with a few exceptions). S-Bahn is operated by DB and paid by the state as I understand.
The small diagram that is on the covers of the power indicates where short trains stop during off-peak.
There is a restriction on the heights of buildings within the historic centre. In recent time there are popping out quite a few higher buildings just outside this region, but these buildings form not a cluster like La Défense in Paris and I mostly hate them.
There are also some projects one the way or finished to move the main ring route (Mittlerer Ring) into tunnels. Nice parks, no separation of the city, no traffic lights and really expensive. However I’m pretty sure Brownlee can be easily convinced to spend 10 billion to do the same with Auckland highways.
There is however one similarity to Auckland: there is a big fight between the city (Munich, SPD=labour) and the state government (Bavaria, CSU=conservatives) of financing a second S-Bahn core tunnel between Ostbahnhof and Hauptbahnhof. The central government (Berlin, conservative) stepped out after Munich lost out on the winter olympics 2018. At least everybody agrees that the second tunnel is needed. The current tunnel has no additional capacity left (already a train every 2 min.) to run additional trains to get a 10-min. frequency on each line or for an additional express trains to the airport.
I think Olypmic games are a ridiculous argument for an infrastructure investment, but for Munich it worked out 40 years ago: S-Bahn, U-Bahn and integrated ticketing.
Greetings from Munich
P2P – are the Deutsche Bahn services paid for by the Bundesregierung (Federal Government) or the Landesregierung (Bavarian State Government)?
Ross – DB is paid from the Landesregierung (Bavarian State Government) for supplying regional train services.