For seven years, Munich’s architect husband and wife duo Hermann Grub and Petra Lejeune have fought and worked for their idea to build a tunnel under one of the biggest inner city parks of the world, the Bavarian capital’s English Garden, merkur.de reports today, July 20, 2016. The new tunnel would mean a “Reunification” (Wiedervereinigung) of the English Garden. The ring road through the garden was built in the 1960s, dividing the park in two parts.

“The architects have designed a tunnel between Ifflandstrasse and Dietlindenstrasse with a slip road for traffic joining the Isarring via Ifflandstrasse, thus doing away with any surface traffic and, of course, the traffic lights. The garden character of the surface will be restored, re-joining the south and north parts.” (forum, toytowngermany.com)

The video below shows how the tunnel is planned to be built.

The plans have been introduced under the campaign name “Mein Englischer Garten – Wiedervereinigung” (My English Garden – Reunification) and one of the biggest obstacles in the realisation of the idea was financing, as the City of Munich (SPD) wasn’t prepared to carry all the costs of the fantastic project, but wanted the Bavarian government to also participate.

Tomorrow, July 21, 2016 the government of the Free State of Bavaria will announced that it is prepared to carry a part of the costs for the tunnel which will reunite the English garden. According to Mayor Dieter Reiter, the projected costs will be €100-€120 million and the City of Munich is going to pay somewhere around two thirds of the costs, the Free State about one third, but are part of the money for the tunnel will also come from private sponsors from Munich, such as the Allianz insurance company and others. Construction could begin in about two years from now.