Dang!
After having watched the video in question, I would offer this prospective (having lived around Germany off/on for 40 years):
On ‘fiber’ integration? It’s lagged. Virtually all of the metropolitan cities and their ‘shadows’ have it. The rest? On some schedule. My village has hit almost 20 years. If you gone 10 miles north (into the boonies)...they will get it in the next year or two. If you go another 10 miles north...it’ll be 2030 before they see it. If you asked why? It’s just not a priority.
I call it the urbanization factor...if you want all the key things in life, you need to live near a urban center. If you want a quiet uncomplicated community, without the stress...you have to accept less.
On the Bahn railway? In 1978, when I first arrived in Germany....the trains generally ran on time (say 90-percent). As each generation has come and gone...the Germans added more technology...more expectations, and more key ways to factor in odd failures.
Take for example train toilets. In 1978, you stepped into the toilet cabin, and it was a manual operation....you took your crap and it fell on the track. Today? The toilet is all technical...loaded with water, and emptied at night in a sewage situation. Well...it fails a good bit. You can step onto any modern train, and I’d say it’s a 20-percent the six-car train has three of its toilets non-functional.
The gov’t belief that you can keep adding more trains and convince people to leave the car at home? You simply added more potential chaos. My local Wiesbaden station probably had 10-to-12 trains in 1978 during rush-hour. Today, it’s probably closer to 16 trains in the same period. People bought onto the idea of dumping the car for their job in Frankfurt (taking the 45 min train ride). Adding to this...a lot of people like their work in Frankfurt, but hate the Frankfurt lifestyle....preferring a ‘shadow-city’ for less stress.
Infrastructure in decline? A good example...the autobahn system has 40,000 total bridges. Presently, the planning folks admit...5,000 of them need replacement/renovation. They don’t have the money to cover this. So bridges are pushed an extra decade (or two). Then you end up with rush-up emergencies....without a lot of planning.
The adding of DDR/East Germany in 1990s to the renovation plan? Hundreds of billions of Euro spent to bring them up to the West German standard. You can go into Erfurt or Dresden and feel like it’s modern. But you can exit the same cities, and drive a dozen miles...to find some small town that resembles 1960s Soviet-dominated culture. Even in 50 years, the odd appearance is likely to still exist.
You have a country that is 85-percent the size of California, and heavily dominated by urbanization. The train-network is there...a dozen major airports exist around the country...with everything ‘hinged’ together with mostly hope. Every summer, with heat...you hear of some autobahn where the pavement buckled and blew-out. If someone speaks of a autobahn renovation project...they aren’t talking about a 18-month period...it’s usually three to five years. The Stuttgart-21 project...where they were going to build a totally new design for the train station, add tunnels, and fix a hundred-year old poor design? Started in 2010, and supposed to take 9 years. It’s planned now to be the end of 2026 before it’s done, with the price-tag more than tripled.
My fair criticism? They’ve got a Disneyland operation that needs continual renovation and critical funding, which they can’t achieve without ‘pain’. United on a design or type of effort? No...you have a large segment of society arguing about renovation or design. This massive push to get away from oil/natural gas heat, and go to the heat-pump technology? I’d say more than 60-percent of society isn’t buying into it.
The E-car push? It’s done...the trend peaked last year. I’d say more than 70-percent of society isn’t buying into the gimmick.
But here’s the thing...if you venture around all of Europe...other than Switzerland, I can’t think of a country that has signed up for so much in design, and made the effort to deliver.