It took exactly 40 years before the only sensible transport solution project for Salzburg finally came about, the local railway extension, the “S-Link”. In view of the many preventers, bankruptcy accelerators, traffic jam fetishists who are raving about the collapse of the traffic, it is astonishing: “We barely wait 40 years, it comes.” Salzburg suffocates in road traffic and instead of solving the problem with the only sensible alternative regional light rail network in the central area of Salzburg with an inner city tunnel, people grumbled with “shortest subway” and “you can walk there”, “too expensive” and other false claims . Well, we like to look at the commuter from Mattighofen, who walks to Salzburg and back every day.
Salzburg regularly has traffic collapses with total traffic jams lasting for hours. To prevent this, a transport system is needed that is able to shift around 50,000 car journeys to public transport every day. If politicians want to increase the proportion of public transport from 12% to 30% and the proportion of car journeys from 45% to 30%, 50,000 car journeys would have to be shifted every day. This is only possible with efficient rail transport, such as the Salzburg Local Railway, which ideally can transport 15,000 passengers per hour. These 15,000 passengers today correspond to the daily capacity of the Salzburg local railway.
It is thanks to Landesrat Schnöll that building work on the “S-Link” started in 2023, will be put into operation to Mirabell in 2025 and to Hallein in 2027/2030! Even if many pessimists still want to badmouth the project, one can only encourage state councilor Schnöll, despite all the beating at his feet, to consistently go the way to the “S-Link”!
Richard Fuchs, “Die Rote Elektro” association, 5020 Salzburg
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