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Freiburg

Freiburg im Breisgau, Jason’s home city in the Black Forest. Travel note: Freiburg. (File named “(Literary)” to avoid clashing with the Travel note’s name.)

At a glance

SourceAuthorRoleIn one line
The Tram Network in Transition: Dismantling, Expansion, Future PlansVAG Freiburgsubject125 years of Freiburg trams: built, bombed, cut back in the 1960s, then expanded district by district since 1983.
Destroyed City, Broken Trams: When Freiburg Lay in RuinsVAG FreiburgsubjectThe RAF raid of 27 November 1944 and what it did to the city and its trams.
Verpackungssteuer: So läuft es laut einer IHK-Umfrage bei den Freiburger BetriebenSaskia SchuhsubjectHow Freiburg’s packaging tax is landing with local cafés, bakeries and shops.
Verdi-Streik: Am Montag fahren in Freiburg keine Busse und BahnenMatthias JoerssubjectA day-long strike stops the city’s trams and almost all its buses.
Germany’s “Green” City (with more bikes than cars!)Not Just BikessubjectA video tour of Freiburg as a car-light model city.

Sub-places

The Tram Network in Transition: Dismantling, Expansion, Future Plans — VAG Freiburg (2026)

Source: Original · Readwise highlight

For 125 years, trams have shaped the cityscape of Freiburg.

  • Role: subject
  • In the article: A VAG blog history of the city’s tram network in phases. Construction (1901–1928) brought the city’s first power plant, built to run the trams. Crisis and war followed, with repairs after the bombing raid of 27 November. In the 1960s routes were dismantled; the single-track “Blue 5” to Haslach closed in 1961. From the 1980s came the light rail: the line to Paduaallee opened on 9 December 1983, and new districts were connected one after another (Landwasser 1985, Weingarten and Haid 1994, Rieselfeld 1997, Vauban 2006, Rotteckring 2019, the former freight yard 2023). It opens with places where track once ran and doesn’t now, such as the Wiwili Bridge and Goethestraße. It ends with planned lines to Dietenbach, the Kappler Knoten and Fahnenbergplatz–Robert-Koch-Straße.
  • Why it matters: The city is the subject: the article argues that Freiburg’s growth can be read straight off its tram map, because of the rule that every new district gets a tram. It’s also Jason’s home network; his own highlight on the piece reads “Yes! We enjoy the benefits to this day.”

Destroyed City, Broken Trams: When Freiburg Lay in Ruins — VAG Freiburg (2026)

Source: Original · Readwise highlight

It destroyed large parts of the old town, but also districts such as Betzenhausen, Stühlinger, the Mooswald settlement and above all Neuburg.

  • Role: subject
  • In the article: A VAG history piece for the raid’s 80th anniversary. “Operation Tigerfish” struck between 7:58 and 8:18 p.m. on 27 November 1944: 2,797 dead, almost 10,000 injured, 5,700 apartments destroyed. About 30 trams and three town-gas buses were on the streets; 900 metres of track and much of the overhead line were destroyed, but none of the 344 tram staff were killed. Cars burned in front of the municipal theatre and the main station, and two parked at the Betriebshof-Nord depot were written off. Women conductors walked home past “dark mountains of rubble”. Service resumed on 26 May 1945 on the Holzmarkt–Günterstal and Oberlinden–Littenweiler routes.
  • Why it matters: The whole city is the subject: the raid is the event the tram network had to be rebuilt from. The article also exists in Reader as a second copy (“fixed preview”), scanned as the same text.

Verpackungssteuer: So läuft es laut einer IHK-Umfrage bei den Freiburger Betrieben — Saskia Schuh (2026)

Source: Original · Readwise highlight

In Freiburg seien die Diskussionen auch deutlich häufiger als in Tübingen oder Konstanz, wo es ebenfalls eine Verpackungssteuer gibt.

  • Role: subject
  • In the article: A report on a chamber of commerce (IHK) survey of local businesses about the city’s tax on disposable packaging, presented at a bakery on Lehener Straße; Freiburg businesses report more arguments with customers over the tax than in Tübingen or Konstanz, which have the same tax.
  • Why it matters: The city’s own policy is the subject; the comparison with the other two towns frames Freiburg as the harder case.

Verdi-Streik: Am Montag fahren in Freiburg keine Busse und Bahnen — Matthias Joers (2026)

Source: Original · Readwise highlight

Die Freiburger Verkehrs AG (VAG) wird am Montag, 2. Februar, ganztägig bestreikt.

  • Role: subject
  • In the article: The Freiburger Wochenbericht reports that the VAG will be on strike all day on Monday, 2 February: no VAG trams and only a very few buses run. It lists which lines are unaffected or partly running and notes that the Breisgau S-Bahn and Deutsche Bahn regional trains still reach Freiburg.
  • Why it matters: The whole city’s public transport is the subject; the strike shows how much daily life depends on the network the VAG history pieces describe.

Germany’s “Green” City (with more bikes than cars!) — Not Just Bikes

Source: Original · Readwise highlight

This is Freiburg im Breisgau, a city in the Black Forest.

  • Role: subject
  • In the video: A tour of the city as a model of car-light planning: the pedestrianised old town, the tram network kept and expanded, rebuilding after the war, the Vauban district and the main station.
  • Why it matters: The whole city is the subject, held up as proof that a mid-sized German city can have more bikes than cars.

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