Podcasts Archives - Page 20 of 31 - Radio Spaetkauf

Cherry Tree Massacre

Bike thefts are down 11% in Berlin. Just over 30,000 bikes were reported stolen in the past year, 4000 less than the year before. Has the flood of shared bikes helped?

There’s been a cherry tree massacre at the Garten der Welt in Marzahn. Seventeen cherry trees were chopped down on Sunday. The kirchbäume were the garden’s biggest drawcard each spring during the cherry blossom season. The gardens have been targeted by protests over a plan to have sheep and cattle graze on nearby paddocks.

Don’t be confused if soon see U3 trains running on the U1 line. The BVG is extending the U3 all the way to Warschauer Straße to increase service frequency. In the past 10 years, passenger numbers have increased by 17%, but there are about 5% less carriages.

The Berlin Feminist Film Week is on now with a programme of movies made by women, transgender and queer film-makers. It’s on at Crcrl in Neukölln and Babylon in Mitte until Wednesday March 14.

This episode was presented by Joel Dullroy and Maisie Hitchcock, and brought to you by RadioEins.

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RS Live: Inside Tempelhof

Film director Karim Ainouz tells us what life was really like for refugees living in Tempelhof airport. His documentary “Zentralflughafen THF” was filmed in the camp, which recently closed.

Could public transport in Germany soon be free? The federal government suggested it as a way of reducing air pollution from diesel cars. What would Berlin be like if dirty cars are banned? Should car manufacturers be made to pay for cheating and lying?

Maisie says Berlin’s U-Bahns are filling up with more passengers. That might be because the BVG has cut costs and failed to order enough trains. They’re now allowing graffiti-tagged carriages to stay on the tracks.

This episode was recorded live at the Comedy Cafe Berlin on Sunday February 25, 2018. Hosts: Maisie Hitchcock, Joel Dullroy and Daniel Stern.

Image © Juan Sarmiento, Luxbox films.

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How To F#€k Up An Airport – Episode 3: Money for Nothing

BER has been built twice – the first time incorrectly, the second time incompletely. We hear from Marco, an engineer who worked on site. Employees were busy stealing copper instead of fixing the fire system. Some managers got rich taking bribes. Informers had their coffee poisoned.

Joel and Jöran drive out to the unfinished BER terminal to inspect the too-short escalators that end with stairs. They were just one of 150,000 mistakes discovered in an audit after the 2012 cancellation. Cables were stuffed together in overloaded enclosures – a fire risk. The sprinkler pipes were too small to carry the required water. More than 600 fire walls had to be reconstructed. And the builders forgot to install lightning rods.

Even when it’s fixed, BER will need another overhaul: “As soon as they open it they have to modernize it,” Marco says. “The technology is old standards. New airports are already building in a different way. This is going to be from the beginning an old airport.”

But finally, heads are starting to roll… the wrong heads. The BER supervisory board fires the only people who know what’s going on, creating new chaos. Then they fire the CEO Rainer Schwarz, but bungle the paperwork. Will any politician ever take responsibility?

How To Fuck Up An Airport is presented by Radio Spaetkauf and RadioEins.
Producer: Joel Dullroy
Presenters: Joel Dullroy, Maisie Hitchcock, Jöran Mandik and Daniel Stern
Music: Ducks!
Artwork: Jim Avignon

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How To Fuck Up An Airport – Episode 2: Double The Recipe

Days away from the planned 2012 opening party, nothing seemed wrong at BER. What was really going on? On this episode, we look at how the airport managers and politicians were messing with the plans, even as construction was underway.

They demanded a 70% increase in terminal space to add hundreds of extra shops, and requested special double story boarding gates for the supersized Airbus A380, even though no airline requested it. Instead of a working fire safety system, they planned to hire up to 800 people to act as human fire alarms.

Despite multiple warnings, the airport board pushed ahead with opening party plans right up until May 8, 2012, when the first major delay was announced. We meet the man who put a stop to it all – Stephan Loge, the administrator of the Brandenburg building department.

Also on this episode, Joel and Jöran visit the Schönefeld S-Bahn station in search of the empty train that runs nightly to the unfinished airport to keep air moving through the tunnels.

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How To Fuck Up An Airport – Episode 1: Without A Plan

Every Berliner knows the new airport is late. Few know exactly why. We’re here to explain. BER is the international airport code for Berlin Brandenburg Airport, nickname Willy Brandt. It has also become a signifier of failure, incompetence, corruption and Berlin’s general inability to get its act together.

If you’ve flown to Berlin Schönefeld Airport in the last few years, you’ll have seen BER as your plane taxied along the runway. But despite outward appearances, BER is far from finished. It has been under construction for 11 years, blown through six opening dates, three general managers and two state leaders. Costs have ballooned from around €1 billion to at least €5.4 billion.

Across this series, you’ll learn why the escalators are too short, why the lights are always on, and why the rooms seemed to be numbered by bingo. We’ll interview insiders and disgruntled workers, chase ghost trains running to the terminal, and go inside the unfinished airport.

On this episode we’ll go way back to before any plans had been drawn, before even the Berlin wall had come down, to discover the foundational flaws that continue to haunt the unfinished airport.

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