VIENNA

The first plans for an underground railroad began in Vienna back in the 1840s. Over 100 years later, the city council agreed to convert the so-called Stadtbahn (today’s U6 line) into a larger subway network.

The system now consists of five lines, is over 80 km long and transports over 1.3 million passengers a day in a constantly growing network. The new U5 line is planned to be fully automated and we get an exclusive insight into the preparation of the 120m long and 500 ton tunnel drilling machine, which will eat its way through Vienna’s underground at 10m per day for the next two years.

Right next door, in an active tunnel of the U4, we meet the urban explorer @aka_thecity who we are allowed to accompany to his favorite place in Vienna’s underground. He describes the appeal of visiting places that civilians don’t normally have access to. He gives us a gripping and unique insight into the tunnels and tracks of the Vienna subway.

As we make our way through the system, we meet the chart-topping Onk Lou who, although he can be heard regularly on the radio, prefers to try out his new songs in the subway and inspire passengers with his very special voice. He gives us an exclusive concert in one of Vienna’s famous Otto Wagner pavilions (Pilgramgasse station).

The music disappears in the noise of the service and in the foreground we hear the clacking of a blind man’s cane through one of the 24 km of safety lines in the Vienna subway. The cane belongs to Oliver and we are allowed to accompany him for a while. We learn how he finds his way around the urban jungle as a blind person and what we as passengers can do to make things a little easier for him.

Our next encounter is very quiet, but no less interesting. In the middle of the passenger tunnels at Schottenring station, we observe the performance artist Julia Petschinka, who awakens as a druid among the hurrying passengers.

Night owls also get their money’s worth in the Vienna subway. We visit the first Vienna subway rave party in Volkstheater station. We are the only camera team allowed to take a look behind the scenes and show how two trains are equipped as a bar and DJ train in advance.

But it’s not just music that the Vienna subway has to offer: the art organization Red Carpet Award uses unused spaces in over 12 subway stations and gives both young and established artists such as Ai Weiwei the opportunity to make their art accessible to people at a very low threshold. We talk to the curator of the art initiative and find out why it is so important to bring art into people’s everyday lives and why the subway is the perfect place for this.

The passengers we meet on our way through the system tell us about their Vienna and why this city is on the one hand the most liveable, but on the other hand the most unfriendly city in the world. We talk about the “grumblers” and the train travelers, the cosmopolitan and at the same time small-town mentalities.