DanRoM
Forum Addict
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2009
- Messages
- 10,378
- Location
- Ruhr Area, Germany
- Car(s)
- MX-5 ND, Tracer 900 GT & two bikes
So... an Autobahn bridge on the German A 45 that got closed rather suddenly a month ago because of "oh shit, this is gonna collapse" will not be reopened, because even building in strengthening measures making it suitable for car traffic only (no lorries) would take three years.
Tearing down the old bridge and building a new one is estimated to take five years, and everyone's reaction to that is "yeah right".
This is the spot, and here's the German Wikipedia article about the bridge, source of this picture:
So the only Autobahn running through that region is cut for years to come, and there are many, many industrial companies there. The region is basically fucked, especially the town of Lüdenscheid that has to cope with all the Autobahn traffic now running through town. This is the road from Frankfurt to the Ruhr Area and further towards North-Western Germany. The alternative routes go via Cologne, a traffic hellhole already, or Kassel, a massive detour towards the east.
This is a major case of negligence, it was clearly missed to repair/replace the bridge in time. It was already known in 2010 that the bridge was approaching critical status, but due to lack of resources (read: political will) it was postponed several times. Until late last year, when an inspection basically ended with the structural engineer on site taking out his phone and calling the police to stop traffic immediately (dramatization by me, but that's basically what happened).
The A 45 was build in the 1960s, and because of the hilly terrain there are many bridges, practically all built in the same way. While some have seen major preventive repairs in the last two decades, it's now an open question whether those repairs were sufficient, and of course there's the matter of the bridges that are still original.
On the political side: The prime minister of our state of Northrhine-Westfalia has been the Minister for Traffic until three months ago, when he took the PM post because his predecessor went off to be a member of the federal parliament. This probably means nothing, as the main opposition party had that ministry from 2010 to 2017, so they can't really say anything.
Tearing down the old bridge and building a new one is estimated to take five years, and everyone's reaction to that is "yeah right".
This is the spot, and here's the German Wikipedia article about the bridge, source of this picture:
So the only Autobahn running through that region is cut for years to come, and there are many, many industrial companies there. The region is basically fucked, especially the town of Lüdenscheid that has to cope with all the Autobahn traffic now running through town. This is the road from Frankfurt to the Ruhr Area and further towards North-Western Germany. The alternative routes go via Cologne, a traffic hellhole already, or Kassel, a massive detour towards the east.
This is a major case of negligence, it was clearly missed to repair/replace the bridge in time. It was already known in 2010 that the bridge was approaching critical status, but due to lack of resources (read: political will) it was postponed several times. Until late last year, when an inspection basically ended with the structural engineer on site taking out his phone and calling the police to stop traffic immediately (dramatization by me, but that's basically what happened).
The A 45 was build in the 1960s, and because of the hilly terrain there are many bridges, practically all built in the same way. While some have seen major preventive repairs in the last two decades, it's now an open question whether those repairs were sufficient, and of course there's the matter of the bridges that are still original.
On the political side: The prime minister of our state of Northrhine-Westfalia has been the Minister for Traffic until three months ago, when he took the PM post because his predecessor went off to be a member of the federal parliament. This probably means nothing, as the main opposition party had that ministry from 2010 to 2017, so they can't really say anything.