uni'alumni 2013_ENG

Progress on the city tunnel: After more than ten years of debate between city planners and the state government, the Freiburg Regional Council announced the completion of preliminary planning at the beginning of the year 2012. The planners favor a route that starts at Schützenalleetunnel in the east and ends just past Kronenbrücke in the west. The tunnel will consist of two tubes mea- suring 13 meters in diameter 30 meters below ground, part of it running directly under the Dreisam River. In August and September, the city conducted seismic measurements along the planned route in order to minimize the danger of unpleasant surprises underground. The 1.7-kilometer-long tunnel will enhance the value of Freiburg’s street network: Federal Road 30 will be converted into an expressway as soon as the project is ﬁnished, because in May 2012 the city received the go-ahead for the ﬁnal link at Maria-Hilf. This means that it will be pos- sible to drive into either of the tubes and back out of them again in both directions, the usual standard for an expressway. “The conversion of the road into an expressway will relieve trafﬁc congestion in the city center and on the entire east side much more than the original plan of a partially connected federal road would have,” says an enthusiastic Mayor Dr. Dieter Salomon. However, it will be quite a while before the yellow federal road signs are replaced with the iconic blue autobahn signs: Work on the tunnel is scheduled to begin in 2025 at the earli- est – and end in 2032. Claudia Füßler CENTENARIAN Big Birthday The architect, city planner, and lecturer Prof. Dr. Horst Linde celebrat- ed his 100th birthday in April 2012. He set national standards in architecture like few others in the decades following World War II: In 1947 he founded the Reconstruction Ofﬁce for the Universi- ty of Freiburg, from 1957 to 1971 he was responsible for the entire state building administration as director of the Surface Construction Department at the Ministry of Finance. Many churches and public buildings, such as the State Parliament Building in Stutt- gart and Collegiate Building II of the University of Freiburg, were built ac- cording to his plans. Linde lives in Freiburg, whose modern cityscape he played no small role in creating. He is still sought out today as an advisor in questions of city planning. Schutzenalleetunnel is already there – the new tunnel will start where it ends. Photo: Kunz This is the route favored by the planners for the 1.7-kilometer-long city tunnel. Source: Freiburg Regional Council, Sketch: Klaas Bring On the City Tunnel NEW BUILDING Looking for a Location The City of Freiburg and the Bundesliga soccer club SC Freiburg plan to conduct a feasibility study in 2013 on various potential locations for a new stadium. They have thus drawn the logical conclusion from the results of a report on the club’s current stadium on Schwarzwaldstraße conducted by an auditing and consulting ﬁrm. The report found it would not be possible to fulﬁll the licensing conditions for the Bundesliga and ensure the club’s long- term competitiveness by enlarging or renovating the existing stadium, which was built in 1954. The city and the club are considering locations in the neigh- borhoods of Rieselfeld and Brühl- Beurbarung for the new stadium. MÜLLHEIM–MULHOUSE Fast Track to France For the first time in 32 years, there is again a regular commuter train connection between Müllheim in Baden and Mulhouse in Alsace: The regional line of the French railway company SNCF was inaugurated on 8 December 2012. The train crosses the border seven times a day on weekdays and Saturdays and five times on Sundays, with connections in Müllheim to regional trains to Basel and Freiburg. The line has been equipped with modern signaling tech- nology and is already prepared to accommodate the high-speed train TGV: Starting on August 2013 the TGV will make one trip a day from Freiburg to Paris and back via Mulhouse, reducing the travel time from Freiburg to the French capital to less than four hours. A LOOK FORWARD B3 B31 Kronenbrücke Schwabentorbrücke Schützenalleetunnel Stadttunnel Dreisam Talstraße uni'alumni 2013 City Life 33

uni'alumni 2013_ENG

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