Salzburg: The Mönchsberg garage in Salzburg’s old town is being expanded
For ten years, an opponent tried to prevent the planned expansion of the Mönchsberg garage, without success. Now only one decision of the Administrative Court is missing: Does the environmental compatibility have to be checked? Independently of this, the owners – the city and state of Salzburg – have once again decided to expand Garage B.
Salzburg – As early as ten years ago, the company had decided under the founder Mayor Heinz Schaden that Moenchsberg dig further and Garage B – the back right entrance – to increase by 650 parking spaces. Then as now, the aim was to create more space on the one hand on peak days and, on the other hand, to make car-free inner-city squares that were still parked on, such as Kapitelplatz.
Decision made: Mönchsberggarage in Salzburg’s old town is being expanded
After the decision on Thursday (January 20th), the Chamber of Commerce and the city center merchants are cheering. Above all, affluent customers from Bavaria would not want to come to the city center by bus, and the expansion was also “indispensable” for the 1,600 businesses in the city center. After all, the shopping centers on the outskirts also have thousands of parking spaces in front of the front door. “Even for many of the 14,000 employees in the city center it is not possible to get to their workplace by bus or train,” says Economic Chamber President Peter Buchmüller. Overall, it is not reasonable for customers from a catchment area of around 100 kilometers to use public transport to go shopping, to eat or to go to the theater.
“Tax money burned”: Financial disaster through the expansion of the Mönchsberg garage?
The opponents, first residents in the noble Nonntal district, where the excavation pit is to be created during the work in the mountain, and later the Greens in the city first put forward environmental protection arguments, now they fear a financial disaster. The planned construction costs have increased over the past ten years from around 20 million euros back then to now almost 40 million euros increased, a new parking space would thus be around cost 60,000 euros.
Since the parking garage company will have to bear the construction costs alone, opponents fear that after completion there will even have to be advertising to attract more users to the garage, and with it more traffic in the city center. Green City Councilor and as such a member of the Supervisory Board Ingeborg Haller fears that the parking garage company WILL turn from a cash cow to a subsidized operation after the construction, “for 650 new spaces that we will only need on a few days a year, tax money will be paid here burned”. Haller also recalled that 3,000 people from Salzburg called for a citizen survey with one signature. However, due to a formal error, the signatures were not recognized.
Angelika Gasteiner, who also represents the Greens on the supervisory board of the Parkgesellschaft, believes that the two garages A and B of the Mönchsberggarage are only really busy on a few days a year. “We all know when the two garages are full, viz in summer when it rains but not a single Salzburger drives into the old town”. However, the management always counts “full occupancy”, even if the entry traffic lights are only “red” for a few minutes a day.
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