New report: Refurbishment jam at bridges in Germany apparently a lot bigger than beforehand suspected | EUROtoday

According to a survey, the federal authorities underestimates the renovation backlog among the many dilapidated bridges in Germany. According to the group Transport & Environment (T&E), round 16,000 bridges are dilapidated in federal fingers. At the federal, state and municipal stage, as much as 100 billion euros should be invested within the substitute of bridges in line with T & e-calculations. T&E is a European umbrella group of non-state organizations that claims to work for sustainable visitors.

The outdated infrastructure already signifies that buildings should be blocked time and again. The most up-to-date instance is the so -called Ringbahnbrücke on the A100 in western Berlin. It has been tight since mid -March as a result of a tear within the construction had elevated.

The constructing of 1963 is presently being demolished, then a brand new constructing ought to observe. When the brand new bridge is standing is open. The Ringbahnbrücke belongs to some of the vital visitors nodes in Germany, the motorway triangle radio tower. At the native stage, the Carol Bridge in Dresden might be essentially the most distinguished case. The bridge fell into the Elbe in September 2024.

“It has long been foreseeable that many bridges in the German road network are in poor condition,” writes T&E within the report that’s accessible to the German Press Agency. “Many bridges, often built in the 1970s, were originally designed for a lower load.”

Above all, T&E criticizes that the Ministry of Transport in its 2022 bridge modernization program doesn’t check out your complete motorway community. According to the ministry’s renovation plan, 4,000 bridges within the core community are to be renovated in a interval of ten years. In the long run, one other 4,000 motorway bridges ought to observe.

T&E involves considerably increased numbers: “A total of 5,905 bridges, 24 percent of the bridge area in the federal highway network, have to be replaced. A further 10,240 bridges are so heavily loaded that a replacement building is probably necessary, but can also be remedied by reinforcement.”

The situation of the bridges shouldn’t be equally unhealthy in all places. “The city -states of Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen are particularly affected, in which many bridges are significantly stressed above their original interpretation.” In North Rhine-Westphalia, the proportion of the bridge space that must be rebuilt is twice as excessive as in Bavaria. The bridges within the East German international locations, alternatively, “largely built in the 1990s and were already designed for higher traffic loads”.

“We actually know exactly which bridge has to be renovated quickly,” says Benedikt Hey from T&E Germany. “But the Ministry of Transport lags the necessities so far that Autobahn GmbH now carries out a triage in modernizing road bridges. This is absurd and expensive, because every kidnapping renovation will cost much more in the future.”

T&E calls for from the longer term federal authorities, amongst different issues, that the renovation and upkeep will need to have precedence earlier than constructing new highways and federal roads. In addition, the federal and state governments must give the municipalities extra money for the infrastructure. The foundation of the T&E calculations are, amongst different issues, knowledge from the Federal Agency for Road and Transport.