Capital on maintain: Something has began to slide in Berlin. Unfortunately it is simply the Berliners | EUROtoday

The solely stream that by no means runs dry in Berlin is that of dangerous information. Trams listed below are considerably known as trams, apparently an abbreviation for “Daily struggle for the minimum”, “Tragic residual illusion of general mobility” or, in typical Berlin fatalism, “Theoretically, everything possible rolls”. In any case, the issues which can be there for driving elsewhere have been standing nonetheless for days. Is the group of volcanoes accountable once more, you ask your self as a sufferer of adversarial residing situations stranded right here, or is it the treacherous freezing rain? Doesn’t matter. The capital is at conflict with the weather, whether or not left wing or meteorological, this winter.

Is this nonetheless Berlin in any respect, you ponder, perplexed, sliding down the sloping path to the grocery store when nobody receives transfers anymore? The so-called transport firm BVG – which truly stands for “Movement temporarily endangered” or “Please walk carefully” – explains apologetically that the present scenario is “unprecedented in this form”. The “intense freezing rain” “led to massive icing. Such a combination has not existed in Berlin for decades.”

The incontrovertible fact that freezing rain results in icing is about as logical as opening a building web site to restore one thing. Such a mixture has not existed in Berlin for many years.

“I appeal to the House of Representatives”

By the way in which, a volunteer building web site consultant for the state has simply been appointed. From February 1st, 64-year-old Jörg Seegers, who in fact earned his spurs as a BVG building supervisor, shall be tasked with “better coordinating closures,” as he places it with a tremendous humorousness, in addition to figuring out so-called “sleeping construction sites” the place, in keeping with the official announcement, “work has not been done for a long time.” At least the authorities appear to be in a cheerful temper.

Meanwhile, the mayor vents his desperation icily: “We are experiencing extreme weather conditions in Berlin,” he writes on The scenario is so dangerous that Wegner not dares to depart his dwelling workplace to go to the tennis corridor.

If pictures weren’t blowing in over the Insta feed like not too long ago from Kamchatka, the place residents merrily leap from the forty third flooring of a snow-covered prefabricated constructing into the towering powder snow, one may suppose that situations on the Spree had been like these in “The Day After Tomorrow”. Meanwhile, the representatives within the Red City Hall are debating the usage of highway salt and the atomic bomb. For concern of groundwater contamination, the Greens insist on constantly treating the black ice homeopathically. Between Spandau and Köpenick, at most, one or two grains must be dropped with a purpose to make an announcement. To forestall falls, a morally secure posture is really helpful. Spousal splitting is now labeled as an environmental sin.

Meanwhile, the Left Party welcomes extreme slides as progress in social mobility. You need to see the lightning ice as a possibility, as a grassroots democratic combination state and a promoter of flat hierarchies. Posters like “Figure skating for everyone” are already hanging in entrance of the headquarters on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. In the extra-parliamentary opposition, the FDP is contemplating going into the election marketing campaign with damaged legs as an financial issue. In the battle towards the 5 % hurdle, orthopedists might make the distinction.

The Verdi union additionally enjoys the Berlin slide. She has introduced a warning strike for Monday, wherein BVG staff must also participate. Then not less than the subway tracks, on which trains presently run all night time lengthy to maintain the lane clear, would have an opportunity to freeze over properly once more.