Urban Mobility

Just three minutes from Jungfernstieg to the Elbe

Public urban transport provides all-round and efficient services connecting HafenCity. The new underground line U4 will be the main transport artery, backed up by an impressive range of bus lines

Several bus lines are already serving HafenCity, adapting their routes to the successive stages of development in the new district (© Julia Sippel) Start slideshow

The public transport system plays a central role in connecting the new part of town with the rest of the city. It guarantees the ecological and economic and socially sustainable integration of the new district: future traffic volume of more than 100,000 users a day could not be efficiently handled without public transport.

The central public transport artery is the U4 line, which is taking shape underground. By fall 2012, it will provide direct connections to the three most important passenger junctions in the Hamburg rapid transit network: Jungfernstieg, Central Station and Berliner Tor. It will then take just three minutes to travel from Jungfernstieg to the Überseequartier stop. Every day, around 35,000 people are expected to travel this section, which is the equivalent of some 26,000 fewer car journeys per day. To the immediate north of HafenCity are Messberg and Baumwall stations, two well established stops on the U1 underground line.

Three bus lines are also providing regular services to HafenCity, providing additional connections to Hamburg public transport hubs.  Buses offer unbeatable advantages during the development phase of the new district: Flexible routing means that bus services can be adapted regularly to the current state of development. Now lines 3, 4 and 6 run in and out of HafenCity. Line 212, which departs from Altona railroad station, will be the next addition.

Line 6 is already running climate-friendly buses powered by fuel-cells through HafenCity. This technology, which has been driving some Hamburg buses since 2004, is being expanded; Hamburg is developing the world’s most efficient pollution-free traffic infrastructure. Between 2010 and 2013, the operator will be putting another 20 fuel-cell buses into service. By then refueling will be available at the new hydrogen filling station near Oberbaumbrücke bridge, the central gateway to HafenCity.

Other modes of transport supplement rapid transit and bus services: and on the water, from the end of 2010, the HADAG 62 ferry line will be serving Dalmannkai, the first HafenCity stop. Further stops, including HafenCity University, will follow.

Since summer 2009, Deutsche Bahn has been running its rent-a-bike system, already successful in several cities, in Hamburg, too. In future there will be four rent-a-bike depots for the red cycles in HafenCity; the first one is being installed on the Unilever site on Strandkai.

HafenCity therefore already has a well-developed public transport network and it will continue to develop in tandem with the surrounding district. Discussions are already under way about extending the traffic infrastructure beyond the new district, particularly to the east and south. Although the U4 underground line will initially terminate at the HafenCity University stop, another U4 station is to be built north of the Elbe bridges, where it could also join with the rapid transit (S-Bahn) rail line in the medium term.