Controversy about car traffic
Controversial section of the A100 opened in Berlin
While Paris is pushing for car traffic in the city, Berlin is expanding its highway. In view of the climate crisis, the extension of the A100 in many people meets incomprehension and outrage.
The extension of the A100 city highway has been opened in Berlin after twelve years of construction and hundreds of million euros in Berlin. Accompanied by protests, Federal Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder and Berlin’s governing mayor Kai Wegner (both CDU) released the 3.2 kilometer section. “In particular, those who rely on the car will feel improvements from now on,” said Schnieder. After all, not everyone is lucky enough to live right next to a subway or S-Bahn station.
The first vehicles drove over the route in the afternoon – beforehand, a queue formed. Among the first was a driver who had been waiting for hours. “I’m hot to drive over the highway first,” he told the “Tagesspiegel”. A motorcyclist spoke of a “unique moment”. But there were also protests and criticism.
“The city cuts the route”
Many do not convince the arguments for the new section. “This route cuts the city, heats it up – climatically and socially,” said Greenpeace traffic expert Lena Donat. “Instead of pumping another billion euros in a city highway that has fallen out of time with the next section, on which people will continue to be stuck in the future, Berlin could become a modern big city like Paris with this money, with mobility for people instead of cars.” Paris has blocked more and more roads for car traffic in the past few months and years. In addition to the expansion of the motorway, the Berlin Senate also thinks about expanding speed 50.
With the 16th phase of construction between the Neukölln triangle and the Treptow district, the Berlin East should be better connected to the motorway network and especially to BER Airport in Schönefeld. The new section was initially not to be seen on Google Maps.
Construction started in 2013
The construction work for the section had already started in 2013. At that time, costs of more than 450 million euros were estimated, the completion was already expected for 2021/2022. In the meantime, the costs amount to more 720 million euros. This is also why many people see the extension critically. Some speak of Germany’s most expensive street.
Minister of Transport Schnieder referred to the technical complexity of the project, to the technical complexity of the project, to delivery bottlenecks as a result of the war in Ukraine and the consequences of Corona pandemic. Two thirds of the route run in a trough up to seven meters deep. The course of the cross streets and the railway lines had to be taken into account in the construction.
Federation and land: 17th construction phase must follow
Berlin’s head of land Wegner said that the longer A100 would pull traffic from the adjacent residential areas and move them to the highway. However, from the perspective of the current state and federal government, this goal is necessary to extend the A100 to the north between Treptower Park and Storkower Straße. “The city highway has been the main artery of mobility in our city for many years,” Wegner told Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) Radio.
“The 16th phase of construction only makes sense if you also connect the 17th,” emphasized Schnieder. “Only then can the entire A100 project fully develop its actual benefits.” Today’s milestone is just a stopover. “The 17th construction phase must follow.” The expansion of the A100 was firmly anchored in the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan, it said from the Ministry of Transport. For the 17th phase of construction, the federal motorway company will soon propose a preferred planning.
Incomprehension and outrage among opponents
In critics, such statements encounter incomprehension and outrage. According to the police, around 280 opponents of the expansion gathered in front of the hotel where the opening was celebrated, according to the police, and demanded an immediate stop of the plans for the 17th section. The alliance “Bassen Wegen Wegen” unrolled a banner with the lettering “End” at the Treptower exit of the new section.
The traffic researcher Andreas Knie from the Berlin Science Center for Social Research also sees the project critically. “The extended A100 acts like a vacuum cleaner; the highway attracts the traffic, bundles it and simply spits it out in Treptow and Lichtenberg,” he told the German Press Agency. “Instead of calming down the traffic, the highway continues to climb the traffic situation.” With a view to the planned 17th construction phase, he added: “The highway generates traffic, which there was no before, and only creates the problem that was not before.”
dpa
Source: Stern
