Major Sauerland line construction site: All bridges on the A45 must be renewed

Large construction site Sauerland line
All bridges of the A45 must be renewed

The A45 connects the Rhine-Ruhr metropolis with the Rhine-Main region – and will probably become one of the largest motorway construction sites in the coming years. All bridges need to be renewed. There should be no closure for the work.

Motorists in the Sauerland will have to be prepared for years of obstruction and delays. As the WDR reports, all 60 bridges on Autobahn 45 have to be replaced. These were built 50 to 60 years ago and could no longer withstand today’s traffic, as quoted by the broadcaster, Elfriede Sauerwein-Braksiek, head of the Westphalia branch of Autobahn GmbH. If possible, the structures should be replaced in such a way that the motorway does not have to be closed.

For this purpose, the new bridges are to be built next to the motorway and. “And later we’ll push in the finished superstructure,” said Sauerwein-Braksiek. The so-called Sauerland line connects the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Main regions over a distance of more than 250 kilometers.

According to the Autobahn GmbH, around half of the 28,000 motorway bridges in Germany were built between the 1960s and 1980s. These reached the end of their useful life in the coming years. At the same time, traffic on the autobahns has almost doubled since the early 1980s. Above all, the proportion of heavy goods traffic as well as large-capacity and heavy goods transports have increased significantly.

According to the Federal Ministry of Transport, investments in the maintenance of federal trunk roads – in stretches and bridges – have been increased over the past five years, as stated in a response from the Federal Government in September to a question from FDP MPs. Around 1.57 billion euros flowed into bridge maintenance last year. This year it should be around 1.64 billion and 2023 around 1.62 billion euros.

Autobahn GmbH with “Bridges Task Force”

In the coming year, Autobahn GmbH intends to focus in particular on the renovation of bridges, as CEO Stephan Krenz explained in mid-December. A “bridge task force” has been set up to create a nationwide overview of the condition of the motorway bridges.

The federal government has been responsible for the operation, maintenance and expansion of the motorways since the beginning of 2021, previously it was the states. The aim of the major reform: build faster, fewer traffic jams. The Autobahn GmbH was founded for this purpose. In Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen she is also responsible for the federal roads. The company has 10 regional branches, more than 40 branch offices and almost 190 motorway maintenance depots.

There was repeated criticism of the new motorway company, for example because costs had risen or there were delays in IT systems. Actually, the German unit Fernstrassenplanungs- und -bau GmbH should be integrated into the Autobahn GmbH – but this was stopped due to legal concerns.

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