40 years of hearing the train departure announcement “Zug fährt ab!”
In 1969, the first man walked on the moon. The Internet was invented. The Beatles gave their final concert. There was a huge concert at Woodstock. ORF broadcasted in colour for the very first time. And, on 3 November, Vienna began laying the foundations for its new underground network.
- Building the underground powers city development
The idea of building an underground for people to traverse the city centre had been in discussion since the middle of the 19th Century. However, only a city railway was built in Vienna towards the end of the 19th Century. Detailed plans to build an actual underground network were quickly shelved following the outbreak of the First World War.
Thirty five years and another world war later, city planner Karl Heinrich Brunner was given the task of developing a new transport concept. The construction of an underground line was of paramount importance to him. However, the era of the so-called economic miracle (Wirtschaftswunder) was marked by a far-reaching desire for motor cars. It was very difficult to win votes based on pledges to expand the public transport network.
Roland Rainer, the successor to Karl Heinrich Brunner, had a completely different vision of the future: a city centre bustling with buses and taxis, huge car parks on the outskirts of the city and motorways cutting right through Vienna. However, this vision came up against a good deal of opposition. The only proposal of his which was actually implemented was to build an underground tramway.
- Work on constructing Vienna’s first underground line began on 3 November 1969. 40 years later, Vienna’s underground lines transport 1.4 million passengers every day and are the backbone of public transport services in Vienna.
A change of heart at the beginning of the Sixties.
The traffic situation in Vienna at the beginning of the Sixties was becoming ever more chaotic as a result of an increasing number of motorised vehicles. Following a number of traffic-based studies carried out by Professor Edwin Engel, a consensus was reached in 1965: Vienna needed an underground system.
In 1968 and under the auspices of the then mayor Bruno Marek, the municipal council of Vienna agreed on a core network for the underground. This network included the U1 line from Praterstern to Reumannplatz, the U2 from Karlsplatz to Schottenring and the U4 from Heiligenstadt to Hütteldorf. The underground opened for trials on 8 May 1976.
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