Germany’s trains are broken. So is trust.

Public transport in Germany is failing, not just commuters, but the idea of a functioning state. When the system breaks down daily, so does people’s faith in democracy.

A nearly empty S-Bahn train (S7) stands still at an outdoor platform in Wannsee (Berlin). Photo: Pius Fozan | 23 April 2025

Germany has a transport problem. When people say nothing really works, it’s not an exaggeration. It’s the everyday.

Imagine you rely on public transport to get to work, to run errands, to make it to an important appointment. You’re on the S-Bahn or U-Bahn, and suddenly, in the middle of nowhere, the train stops. The conductor announces, without much explanation, that this train will no longer continue. You’re left stranded, waiting for a connection that may or may not come.

Once is forgivable. But when this becomes routine, as it has in my own experience, something is deeply wrong. As I write this, I have been stranded twice in just one trip within Berlin.

I’m not even talking about Deutsche Bahn changing platforms at the last minute. For the elderly, for people with disabilities, to move through crowded stations from one platform to another, this is not an inconvenience. It is a horrifying hazard. Navigating packed stations, rushing across staircases, often without lifts or guidance, it is cruel. It is inconsiderate to the point of being inhumane.

This opens up several problems. One immediate issue is that people start distrusting public transport, then public service delivery, and then the government itself. That often leads to a deeper distrust in the democratic structure people live in. People begin to believe that democracy has a delivery problem. That is dangerous.

What fills this vacuum? Private players. They start filling the void, a void that shouldn't have existed in the first place. Private players aren’t inherently bad, but in spaces like public transport, especially in our times, with the climate as fragile as it is, where profit becomes the prime motive, public good gets pushed aside.

We’ve seen the alternative play out in cities across Asia (New Delhi, Mumbai, Manila to name a few), where the commons have been slowly sold off and the consequences are felt most by those with the least. Catastrophic levels of pollution, mind-numbing traffic, and reduced accessibility for people with lower income and socio-economic status.

Then come political parties. They play on this distrust and exploit it. They cultivate cynicism and distrust toward the entire system and in the very idea of shared responsibility.

This is how it begins.

You don't get a Trump or a Boris or an Alice or a Modi or an Orbán or a Meloni in a day.

I hope those in power wake from their deep slumber and comfortable numbness. Because people are running out of patience. And hope.