MFG: “Completely exaggerated state lift project to Linz Castle raises many questions!”
If you add maintenance and operating costs to the construction costs, a lift ride costs 50 euros per person over ten years.”
LAbg. Joachim Aigner, MFG-Austria federal party chairman
The Upper Austrian People’s Party – or rather, state governor Thomas Stelzer – once again provided a special example of careless use of tax money: from the old town up to Linz Castle, he had what he himself calls his “heart project” realized: a lift , the entrance to which is located in a historic tunnel complex and which is intended to overcome or replace a few meters of altitude and 150 meters of walking. The costs? 2.1 million euros. The project was realized under the pretext of accessibility. “If you look at the costs and circumstances of this elevator, many questions remain unanswered,” says LAbg. Joachim Aigner, MFG-Austria federal party chairman.
No, the Linz Castle Museum is not inaccessible – from the Old Town/Tummelplatz an ascending but very walkable road leads up to the castle at a height of around 30 meters; it’s less than a ten-minute walk from Linz’s main square.
Hardly any visitors, it probably wasn’t due to the lack of a lift…
And yet: fewer than 64,000 people visited the museum in Linz Castle in 2023 – a more than manageable number. The comparable Graz Universal Museum Joanneum achieved a new record with more than 1.1 million visitors at its locations last year. The question remains: Maybe it’s also due to the increasingly strange programming – a few months ago, the Upper Austrian culture advertised and organized drag queen readings, where small children were explicitly welcome…
“If you add the maintenance costs to the construction costs
and operating costs, a lift ride costs over
50 euros per person for ten years.”
LAbg. Joachim Aigner, MFG-Austria federal party chairman
If one assumes that 10 percent of the 64,000 annual visitors to the Linz Castle Museum are so severely disabled that they cannot walk the approximately 150 meter long path from the playground to the castle, the construction costs would be 2.1 million euros Looking at it over ten years, a fictitious fare of almost 33 euros per person per lift ride: “For this money you could take any person with walking difficulties up to the castle museum by taxi – and back again, even the entrance ticket and a coffee in the castle brasserie would be there still in there,” says Joachim Aigner. The 2.1 million euros do not even include the annual maintenance and operating costs in the six-figure range, so a trip would probably cost over 50 euros. The taxpayer has to finance it because using the elevator is free. Joachim Aigner: “It’s actually crazy: many rural communities are struggling financially to survive and the funny Oö. The state governor is chasing millions into a non-essential elevator project for a museum that hardly anyone visits anyway.”
Joachim Aigner continued: “Any initiative that moves towards accessibility is to be welcomed. At the same time, it must also be questioned whether this justifies a ‘million dollar lift’ for a few users or whether these funds would have been better invested in more sensible barrier-free projects that make everyday life easier.”
Better bling-bling instead of sensible general projects
And actually: Free taxi rides between the main square and the castle museum would be cheaper and more sensible – and at a fraction of the cost. Aigner: “The taxi solution could have been implemented unbureaucratically by showing the appropriate ID, but unfortunately, as with so many of his projects, the state governor is mainly interested in bling-bling and headlines at the taxpayer’s expense.” The planned digital university is also being discussed According to Stelzer’s request, several hectares of valuable Linz grassland were built instead of using existing sealed areas such as the old Linz main post office: “A flashy building in a green field is more suitable for social media photos and TikTok stories,” says Aigner.
An accusation that cannot be completely dismissed: ÖVP politicians in particular are often guests at the sophisticated castle brasserie in Linz Castle, from state events to party lunches and evenings. Within the party, the Schlossberg lift is already referred to as the “Landhaus Express” because it will mainly be used by ÖVP grandees in the nearby Landhaus and in the Gleißnerhaus for a dinner date, as they want to save the few meters of walking up to the restaurant…
In addition, Governor Stelzer also wanted to create an escalator up to the castle. The costs for this idea, which is not yet off the table, are said to be even higher than those for the elevator: “If there is still a helicopter landing pad and a cable car missing,” that could be the case Joachim Aigner couldn’t resist taking a swipe at this other completely out-of-touch building project.
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