Berlin In the transport industry, truck drivers are remembering a joke that was fashionable a few years ago: A father from the new federal states is driving his children to West Germany and says: “You see, dear children, that’s how the roads used to be here too out.”
The joke has now become bitter seriousness, it is said today. Within a few years, the federal government had to block or partially block traffic on central autobahns, such as the Rhine bridge near Leverkusen on the A1, or even blow it up immediately, like the Salzbach viaduct near Wiesbaden or the Rahmede viaduct on the A45. The traffic then torments itself on other federal and country roads and at the same time burdens the residents in the villages.
The cases will increase in the coming years. It’s about thousands of reinforced concrete bridges from the 1960s and 1970s that simply collapse under the traffic load and where the smallest design flaws lead to rusting in the steel and thus to the bursting of the concrete. “As the new federal government, we have encountered a considerable renovation backlog and repair backlog,” said Secretary of State for Transport Michael Theurer (FDP).
That’s why it should be quick. Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) invited to the bridge summit this Thursday. For four hours, his officials discussed in talk format with representatives of Autobahn GmbH, engineers and construction companies, approval authorities and environmental organizations how all the dilapidated engineering structures can be quickly made fit for the immense growth in traffic in the transit country Germany. The head of the federal company will submit a status report and urge “doubling the number of bridges to be renewed annually from 200 to 400”, as Managing Director Stephan Krenz has already explained.
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Motorway company gets more money
But that alone is a Herculean task for the Autobahn company, which has only been operational since 2021. 42 projects are currently being planned or implemented. Deges, a federal and state company responsible for major projects, is handling a further seven projects.
At most, 70 projects per year are currently realistic, insiders report. Each viaduct is unique and not a standard construction. The motorway company is to receive at least 2.2 billion euros instead of 1.8 billion euros in this financial year in order to carry out its work. It can invest 5.6 billion euros to maintain the highway network.
A new bridge renovation plan, which has actually been in existence since 2013, is under discussion. A kind of service and financing agreement with the federal highway company is under discussion. The federal government uses such a construct for the state-owned railway, which is supposed to maintain its network with regularly flowing money and document its work on a project-specific basis. The project runs for ten years, but there has been criticism of the model.
In addition to money and the restructuring plan, there is another problem: planning. At the beginning of January, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) promised that new building plans would be “as accelerated as possible”. The state can implement a replacement new building, i.e. a building that is created in exactly the same way as the old bridge, without any complex approval procedures. However, if the bridge is extended by one lane, then it is a new construction – and it can easily take more than ten years from damage to a route being reopened.
Hoping for “unbureaucratic dialogue”
“We should make a necessity out of necessity,” says the construction planners of the federal government. In Rahmede, for example, the aim is for traffic to be able to flow over the bridge again quickly. They are discussing an “unbureaucratic dialogue” at the bridge summit.
Even the environmental association BUND does not want to stand in the way. “We are in agreement with many of those involved in the region that a solution will be found quickly for the Rahmede viaduct that meets all the needs – especially those of the affected population – and, above all, is legally secure. In this respect, in this specific case it is not about whether, but how, said Dirk Jansen, Managing Director of the BUND in North Rhine-Westphalia. There are already many expert opinions, so that species, nature and environmental protection “is not suitable as a scapegoat for any longer planning and approval times”.
In Rahmede, for example, the aim is for traffic to be able to flow over the bridge again quickly. They are discussing an “unbureaucratic dialogue” at the bridge summit.
(Photo: imago images/Hans Blossey)
In general, the BUND has nothing against quick planning procedures, they just have to be legally secure. However, he sees “with great concern that some stakeholders apparently intend to generally forgo a planning approval procedure including an environmental impact assessment for bridge replacements. This can not only be associated with adverse effects on the environment, but also reduces the acceptance of such projects.”
In any case, not only does the planning process take time, but also their review by the federal government, even in the case of new replacement buildings. This can be seen, for example, on the A29 near Oldenburg. The 441 meter long Huntebrücke is to be rebuilt there within five years. It dates from 1978 and is in danger of collapsing.
At the same time, the experts at the federal motorway company expect a “strong increase in daily traffic volume by 2030”. The replacement building is now to be completed within five years. So far, the Federal Ministry of Transport itself has been a bottleneck in the process: it has had to approve every plan so far.
At the end of 2020, the then state office had completed the draft planning and sent it to the Federal Ministry, where the plans only received the so-called “seen note” after ten months. The tenders were already running in parallel to save time. Construction work is scheduled to begin at the end of the year.
In Rahmede, the new Federal Minister of Transport, Wissing, reacted and named an Ombudsman. Italy also appointed such a representative in Genoa a few years ago when a central bridge in the city collapsed there, killing several people. Now the mayor of Lüdenscheid should be the local contact and help to solve conflicts quickly. It’s about environmental concerns and property rights, but also about noise protection for the residents who are affected by the detour traffic.
More: Too small, too tight, too dilapidated: why the rail network is collapsing