By Birgit Buerkner
If you want to use the elevator at the Botanischer Garten S-Bahn station, you either need a helicopter or a fairly long ladder…
First the positives: the elevator is moving. It is fully functional. And you know: you are in Berlin. Only the capital authorities can arrange such an original posse.
As for the situation: Where the elevator door is, there is NOTHING! Or, as seen from the elevator, only the abyss. Please don’t get off!
The temporary bridge leads to the upper actual elevator entrance. An extra entrance portal was even built, which was equipped with neon lighting. But instead of a door, there is only a double glass wall here Photo: Ralf Lutter
The structure is a makeshift bridge for the demolished Moltkebrücke (built in 1909), which is to be rebuilt by 2024.
The replacement bridge leads from the other side of Moltkestrasse to the train station. But something went terribly wrong in the planning. Because the bridge leads directly to the elevator, there is even a specially equipped boarding portal. But where the boarding is, there is a double glass wall and no elevator door.
Daniel (43) and Heike (35) Polster with their son Florian (7 months): “Somebody must have been working according to a scheme.” Photo: Ralf Lutter
Again and again, passengers look confused at the entrance without an entrance. “It’s a disaster,” says André Lefeber, Chairman of the Advisory Board for People with Disabilities. Anyone with a handicap can “no longer use the train station”.
Klaus Seiler (67): “When I come home from shopping with my full wheelchair, it’s difficult to climb the stairs.” Photo: Ralf Lutter
The left faction calls on the district to contact the Senate and Deutsche Bahn. Because the Senate commissioned the construction of the temporary bridge, Deutsche Bahn was responsible for connecting the elevator.
“We hope and expect that Deutsche Bahn will work out a timely solution,” said a district officer when asked by the BZ. The Senate also refers to the responsibility of the railways, the railways in turn to the “lack of capacity of specialist companies,” according to a spokesman. So far no solution in sight!
At the platform level of the Botanischer Garten S-Bahn station, a massive steel post of the makeshift bridge blocks access to the elevator below Photo: Ralf Lutter
Even if – the botched elevator has another, not insignificant blemish: the lower exit is blocked by a massive pillar of the makeshift bridge …