BZ editor-in-chief Miriam Krekel on the lack of accessibility at Berlin’s train stations.
If you are young and fit, it is not a downfall. Unless he or she has a stroller with them. Or makes purchases with the public transport.
For some Berliners, however, they mean an enormous restriction, often a very limited radius of movement in our supposedly borderless city: train stations that are not barrier-free, i.e. those for people with disabilities, older citizens and everyone else who cannot climb stairs, are not available.
Imagine your relative is 80 years old, actually still quite fit, living alone and getting by. She just can’t manage stairs anymore. She uses the train to get around. She cannot afford a taxi. But the train station near you doesn’t have an elevator. You would have to pick them up every time…
And now imagine that this is not your relative, but someone who is on their own.
Also read: 34 U-Bahn and 7 S-Bahn stations in Berlin are still not barrier-free
With good reason, the 2016 coalition agreement stated that all train stations should be barrier-free by 2020. Today, two years later, there are still 34 subway and seven S-Bahn stations.
You can sometimes be late. But this deviation from the goal clearly shows that supposedly so urgent issues should possibly only serve clientele. In the end, once again, a promise was broken.