The Alpenbus has been discussed in Upper Bavaria for five years.
The inter-district bus route is still not in operation.
And it looks like it will stay that way for a long time to come.
District
– It was 2018, when the Bavarian Minister of Transport was still called Ilse Aigner, when the topic of “Alpine buses” came up for the first time.
A cross-district bus line should eliminate a real problem: The north-south connections between Munich and the Oberland are well developed - mostly even with rail routes.
But cross-district east-west connections have de facto hardly existed at all.
The Alpenbus was intended to close this gap.
The express bus line was to run from the Allgäu via the district of Weilheim-Schongau, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen and Miesbach to Rosenheim.
Almost as fast as the train and at least every hour.
Rough Rosenheim stop just before the starting line
Then the political debate began.
The people of the Allgäu quickly gave up, but the other districts mentioned wanted to tackle the project together.
Almost two years ago it almost seemed as if the Alpenbus would slowly roll to the starting line.
The district committees in Garmisch, Miesbach, Weilheim-Schongau and Tölz gave the green light, a route between Murnau and Rosenheim was politically agreed and the financing clarified.
In the first few years, the Free State wanted to take on 65 percent of the costs, and then half later.
This caused some grumbling in the district committee in Weilheim - Markus Söder had promised the Alpenbus in the state election campaign and now wanted to avoid the costs, it said.
In the end we got the green light.
Until, to everyone's complete surprise, the city of Rosenheim refused to follow and rejected the Alpenbus.
What followed was like a state of shock – until now, little has happened in terms of Alpenbus.
The traffic planner of the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen, Matthias Schmid, does not want to write off the topic.
On the contrary: "We will continue to pursue this."
Even if Rosenheim changes its mind, there are still many stumbling blocks
At the end of March, a vote on the Alpenbus is to be held again in Rosenheim.
Schmid is cautiously optimistic that the vote this time will be different than at the end of 2021.
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But even then there are still many stumbling blocks waiting for the cross-district express bus connection.
In principle, the procedure would have to start all over again, according to Schmid.
If the people of Rosenheim say "yes", then the experts from MVV, who were already in charge of this, have to completely recalculate how much the fun would cost.
Because a lot has happened in the meantime - just think of inflation, wage increases and the development of diesel prices.
One thing is already clear: the Alpenbus will certainly not be cheaper for the districts involved – quite the contrary.
Depending on how the Rosenheimers decide, the lines will also be discussed again.
Will the route be completely redesigned again?
Here, too, there is some political fuel lurking.
The previously preferred lines were open to compromise.
In particular, the districts of Weilheim-Schongau and Miesbach had significant advantages.
Because there, on the weekends, visitor magnets would be approached.
The Alpenbus should stop directly at Roche in Penzberg during the week, but be connected directly to the Osterseen in Iffeldorf at the weekend.
If the lines are put up for discussion again, further covetousness could arise.
The residents of the old district of Schongau were not very enthusiastic that the Alpenbus didn't even come close to them.
And the people of Weilheim also reacted quite piqued that the Alpenbus should not start in their city but in Murnau.
According to traffic planner Matthias Schmid from Tölz, if all these cliffs are to be circumnavigated, the consent of all partners involved will be required again.
So both the district committee and the district council would have to give the green light.
And that in each of the participating counties.
Decision carefully postponed to 2024
In Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen and Miesbach, it has already been agreed that this decision will not be made until next year.
The background is political: both districts have just decided to join the MVV (which is very expensive).
In view of the tight district budgets, the enthusiasm of the committees to also spend a considerable amount on the Alpenbus should be limited.
That, in turn, would hardly work in the Weilheim-Schongau district if the Alpenbus were not to be further delayed: Both the MVV membership and the Alpenbus decision would be pending here in 2024.
In a year in which the district would have to go into debt today in order to be able to pay its loan installments.
But even if all of these challenges were mastered, it would still take almost two years before the line could actually go into operation due to the complicated tendering regulations.
By the way
: Everything from the region is also available in our regular Schongau newsletter.
And in our Weilheim-Penzberg newsletter.
