different ICE routes over the line. Therefore, as with the existing Franconian Forest Railway, only one long-distance train service per hour and each way was expected. Critics such as Alliance 90/The Greens and Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland believed the project was pointless and a waste of public funds. They proposed instead to upgrade the rail network in northern Bavaria. Vieregg-Rössler (a consultancy), the Greens and the Verkehrsclub Deutschland (a lobby group for environmentally-friendly transport solutions, VCD) suggested, at the end of 1992, that traffic should run from Erfurt via Gera, Plauen and Hof to Nuremberg. Since 1992, Das bessere Bahnkonzept ("The better railway concept") acted as the umbrella organisation for the citizen initiatives that opposed the line. Prior to a joint meeting of the Bavarian and Thuringian state cabinets, citizens' lists with around 50,000 signatures were submitted against the project and against the A 73 autobahn project. Representatives of Deutsche Bahn also repeatedly criticised the project. In April 1997, the former DB Chairman, Heinz Dürr told the Transport Committee of the Deutsche Bundestag that the route "does not pay particularly". The head of the urban transport division wrote in the same year that the route made "no entrepreneurial sense." Nature conservationists criticised the far-reaching impacts of the new line on the landscape and called it the "most expensive U-Bahn in the world". Transport scientist Heiner Monheim demanded the end of construction in 2007. Instead of the large-scale project, numerous smaller measures would bring about improvements in the area. The majority of the customers did not need the route, just "the construction industry, so that they deserve a golden nose, or speed fetishists dreaming of a high-speed network in Europe." A citizens' initiative was launched around 2009 promoting a route via Lichtenfels, along the A 73, which according to its information would have been €0.5 billion cheaper than the route planned south of Coburg. The Federal Ministry of Transport rejected the proposed route due to its significant impacts. The Ministry also doubted the achievable savings on the basis of the proposed passage through Lichtenfels, Schney and Grub am Forst. In Bamberg the upgrade plans caused protests among citizens, as DB planned to build high noise barriers. Subsequently, the plans were rejected. Three new options emerged from a dialogue: optimised new noise protection on the existing route, which would be lowered at sensitive points, a tunnel for freight trains or