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Hanover (dpa / lni) - The Verkehrsclub Deutschland (VCD) has warned the Lower Saxony government parties SPD and CDU of a blockade on a new ICE line between Hanover and Bielefeld.

The latest motion of the two parliamentary groups in the state parliament turns unilaterally against a new line, said the VCD state chairman Martin Mützel.

He had the impression that the state government had already decided to simply expand the existing line for fear of rail opponents, but it was too early for that.

Only if the east-west trains met in Hanover, Braunschweig and Wolfsburg could the mostly hourly regional trains get a direct connection in both directions, said the VCD boss. This is the case in the present draft of the Deutschlandtakt. If the journey between Bielefeld and Hanover was longer, connections to and from Cologne would no longer work, and waiting times would be longer to and from Berlin. According to VCD, it should be checked whether a new line that is largely remote from settlements actually means a higher burden for the population.

A pure expansion of the existing line would lead all traffic through places like Wunstorf, Stadthagen and Bückeburg, said Mützel.

"It cannot reduce travel times in passenger transport and does little to make railways more attractive than cars and planes."

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Last week, the two parliamentary groups submitted a motion to the state parliament that at least partially questions the two major expansion projects for the fast trains in Lower Saxony.

It must be checked whether new building sections for high speeds between Hanover and Hamburg and Bielefeld are not too expensive, according to the application.

At the beginning of March, Deutsche Bahn began examining the existing route for expansion options for the expansion of the ICE route Hanover-Bielefeld.

From September onwards, variants for a new line or new construction sections will also be investigated, taking the existing line into account.

Although the Federal Ministry of Transport has outlined five possible rough variants of the route, the planning is open-ended.

The results of the detailed railway studies on realizable route variants should be available in two years.

The railway line, which is one of the busiest in Germany, is to be expanded to four tracks and for 300 km / h to connect the Rhine-Ruhr area with Berlin more quickly and to enable better regional traffic between Westphalia and Lower Saxony.

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© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210507-99-501779 / 2

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Motion for a resolution by the SPD and CDU on rail traffic