It has been one of the most criticized traffic optimization projects: Stutgart
21, formerly known as the new central station allowing train pass through
instead of a terminus. Now it seems as if the projected costs of 4.5 billion €
cannot be stuck to and are recalculated to up to 6.8 billion €.

While the new Berlin-Brandenburg Airport is mostly completed (but also with a fail to stick to the projected budget), Stuttgart 21 is far from completion and the federal government sees no adequate reason to further finance the project completion. As the train station initially should have been completed in 2020, it seems now that a completion before 2024 is unlikely, if ever!

One would not want to know how much money has already been wasted upon the first phastes of the project but one thing is for sure. If the construction stops now, Stuttgart will be known as one of the biggest money graves that have been generated thru project missplanning and big failure of compliance and controlling.

The new airport in Berlin-Brandenburg, known as IATA-Code “BER” has also big flaws in project management and budget planning. So has the budget been set to 1.7 billion €. The truth is, that already 4.3 billion € have been used up and as of January 7^th, 2013 the opening of BER is still unknown (it is said that the airport should be opened at the beginning of 2014).

But back to Stuttgart 21, or what is actually a big construction site which is going to stay as one such if the federal government intends to draw back from the project and stop financial assets…

If this train station is not being completed, Stuttgart has no possibility to increase their throughput of trains as the current central station in terminus style does not allow any expansion nor increased cadence of trains.

So the dilemma is big: Being Mr. Pinchpocket, Germany will be the laughing stock of the rest of the world for failing another big construction project.

But going on with the construction will also inherit the need of more money and finally some more taxes or at least increased ones. In this game, there are only loosers. But wo will take the looser tag now? The citizen of Stuttgart (and commonly the rest of Germany) or the federal government?