The Good and Bad of Berlin Transit: Pt. 2
Berlin gets so much right with its transit, but it isn't perfect!
I’m really enjoying my time in Berlin, and the city continues to impress me with the seamless access it provides to public transit. There is so much here worth emulating in other cities, but there are also things that I can only assume stay stubbornly unchanging. The best thing about transit in Berlin though is whether you think it’s good or bad, it gets out of the way and gets you where you need to go, and so you never really have to deal with the negatives for too long.
This is actually the second in my series of “The Good and Bad Of” posts on Berlin, and I recommend reading the first post before diving into this one!
Graffiti 👎
One of those weird cultural divides you really notice between North America and Europe, much like how people dress better in Europe (in my opinion) and the quantity of fast food being much higher in North America, is just how much more graffiti there is in Europe.
Now, to be clear, there is plenty of graffiti on this side of the pond, but I can count the number of times I’ve seen a rail transit vehicle with graffiti on it on one hand, and when it does happen it often makes the news. The sense I get from historians I know is that the era of tons of graffiti on transit in North America — most notably on the New York City Subway system — ended over the last few decades, largely because transit agencies would take graffiti’d vehicles out of service and remove the paint aggressively, removing any real incentive to tag a train in the first place.
Berlin feels like a weird alternate reality where this never happened, and while graffiti was not the worst I’ve experienced, it was pretty widespread both inside and outside of trains and trams. Is graffiti the end of the world? No it’s not, but I think it makes transport feel less clean and less safe (I for one tend to associate graffiti — which I think I would say is distinct from “street art” with places I am not supposed to be), and the ideal transport system manages it very carefully.
U-Bahn Frequencies 👎
Another thing that took me aback in Berlin were the frequencies on the U-Bahn, which were generally not great — especially compared to metros in places like Vancouver, where the most you ever really wait is 3-4 minutes; seeing next train screens display 6, 7, or even 10 minutes was crazy. Frequencies also seemed to fall off early and late into the day more than I am used to with Canadian transit systems. In some ways while I appreciated all the connection screens on transit in Berlin I do think the need for them would be diminished if services as critical to the city as an urban metro ran more frequently.
This is especially notable because in Berlin there doesn’t seem to be a good reason that shorter trains could not be run twice as frequently — perhaps besides cost, but this would be an intervention I would be totally supportive of. The one silver lining of the kind of disappointing service frequencies I saw in Berlin was that services ran to schedule very reliably, so at the very least you were able to ensure you never waited much at all for a train and bus, and even very frequent systems can’t always guarantee you that.
Conveniently Connected Airport 👍
One of the things I was most interested in checking out in Berlin was the famed Berlin Brandenburg Airport, which is probably one of the most famous construction debacles of all time (the airport sat mostly complete but unopened for the better part of a decade because of issues with the fire protection system). Here’s my micro review for anyone curious:
I personally really enjoyed Berlin Brandenburg: the finishings are sharp, modern and minimal and the architecture isn’t bombastic like so many other modern airports — the departures hall is pretty big though. There were a decent number of shops and services as well as a fair number of sitting areas. I also liked the jet gate system, which connected you to your plane with wide views over the tarmac and of the impressive. However, I agree with someone else who I talked about the airport with that it does feel a bit hostile to passengers in that 1) there aren’t many big open spaces where you have shops, restaurants, and seating all together, 2) there is a surprising amount of winding corridors and walking for what is a brand new airport. Good overall!
Now, regarding the airports transit provision, it's quite good, and in particular I really enjoyed the rail station, which is similar to the airport itself in that it is sharp and minimal. The platforms and overhead concourse for the train station are right below the main terminal, and while for some reason I thought there were 2 island platforms — one for mainline trains and one for the S-Bahn, like many stations in the Berlin area there are more station than approach tracks, and so there are actually 2 mainline island platforms in the station. The nice thing about having more platform tracks is that trains can actually stand at the platforms for a fair bit of time, and so you don’t get a potentially confusing endless flow of different services going past.
What’s even more interesting is that a lot of regional services have been routed through the airport, and not all of the track connections between different corridors are double track — which is rational and shows some thought went into planning the service and airport area infrastructure. The FEX service from the airport to Berlin HBF was probably the highlight of my trip after roughly 10 hours on planes and a trip before that on a crappy, loud North American train getting on what felt like one of DBs newest double-decker coaches and being able to experience a superbly quiet and smooth ride into town was just awesome.
Door Buttons 🫵
To be perfectly clear, I think door buttons on trains make a lot of sense in extremely harsh cold or hot weather as an energy saving and comfort measure that means trains aren’t letting all the warm or cool air out every time they stop. That being said, the Berlin weather in October was pretty mild and having to remember to push the button on almost every single transit door in the city was… annoying.
While I am sure I’ll get used to pushing the door button the longer I live in Berlin — though I’ve never really lived in a place where door buttons are regularly used so I mostly just assume a train with closed doors is about to depart — I can’t help but think it is a suboptimal solution to the problem and I really don’t like touching things with my hands on my commute if I don’t have to (which the lack of fare gates helps with!). Surely someone somewhere has figured out automated door opening based on a contactless sensor? Signs onboard the class 483 S-Bahn trains seemed to suggest they might have such a feature, but I couldn’t figure it out — buttons for me!
Standardized Wayfinding, but less is more has its limits 👐
The wayfinding in Berlin is very much a less-is-more affair, which I really appreciate. So often the issue with wayfinding from city to city is too much signage overwhelming one’s senses! What’s nice in Berlin is that things are generally kept very simple, but unfortunately it seems that less-is-more may really have its downsides sometimes.
While getting off the U5 at Unter den Linden to transfer onto U6 to head to dinner, I followed signs to U6, which ended up leading me right out of the station. As it turned out the sign pointing to U6 seemed to be pointing to the elevator and it really sucked when I turned around after ascending the escalator at the far end of the platform and I looked back to see the trains of U6 at the other end of the station. That was the only time I can recall the platforms in Berlin feeling quite long!
I think the reality is that while simple wayfinding can be nice, there is more room for error when more is left to the user — everything has its tradeoffs!
Thanks for subscribing and joining me for this second edition of the “Good and Bad” of Berlin — stay tuned for more in the future!
Interestingly, the Brandenburg Gate stickers were added to U-Bahn train windows about 20 years ago to discourage "scrathitti" on the windows, which has largely worked.
The train you took a picture of isn't even the height of graffiti on trains in Germany... it's certainly an annoyance because it's very rare that the graffiti has anything interesting to say or show. And yes, it does negatively impact perceived safety.