Mr. Krenz, Germany seems to be full of motorway construction sites. Will they be fewer in 2023?
In the past, too little was invested in maintaining the infrastructure. Therefore, we currently have around 552 construction sites that are being worked on for longer. These long-term construction sites affect between 8 and 9 percent of the German autobahn network of 13,200 kilometers. In view of the traffic, we cannot increase this proportion any further. However, it will not drop in the foreseeable future due to the renovation backlog. We are assuming that we will also have around 500 long-term construction sites in the coming years.
So also for five or ten years?
We want to reduce the construction sites as quickly as possible. Framework conditions and resources are decisive for the pace.
How expensive is that for the taxpayer? How much did you invest in 2022?
This year we invested more than ever in the German autobahns, 5.4 billion euros. That was around half a billion more than in the previous year. This means an increase in the volume of construction, because inflationary effects have not yet played any particular role.
Wasn’t the increase also due to increased construction costs?
Increases in construction costs have certainly also partly contributed to higher expenditure. However, by agreeing on material price escalation clauses for selected building materials, the bidders were able to take the calculation risk away.
Lord of the Autobahn: Stephan Krenz, head of the federally owned Autobahn GmbH
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Image: Julia Zimmerman
How dilapidated is the German autobahn network? Similar to the rails?
Basically, we have a well-functioning motorway network. That has to be said once. This network takes the brunt of the traffic in the country. But of course some things have gotten old. We have bridge problems, especially in the west. In the east we are concerned with the problem of the so-called AKR concrete cancer in the concrete roadways. It’s about the decomposition of concrete when it comes into contact with the acidity of certain pebbles and with water. In addition, we still have too few truck parking spaces in the car parks of the service areas. So we need to stay tuned to keep our highway infrastructure in reasonable condition.
Was there a renovation and investment backlog for years?
You can see the renovation backlog in the figures in the federal budget. In retrospect, one can say that the investments in the past decades were not sufficient.
Do you have a stretch of motorway in mind that is a particular problem child?
With the topic of bridges in need of renovation, you can go straight through the republic, from the A 7 in the north with the Rader Bridge over the Kiel Canal to the A 8 near the Austrian border near Salzburg, where there are still many bridges from the pre-war period are.
Why are dilapidated bridges now so much in the foreground?
More than half of the bridges were built between the 1960s and 1980s. At that time, the traffic for which the bridges were statically designed was much lower, both in terms of the number of vehicles and in terms of weight. At that time, much less traffic was forecast for the future than we are actually experiencing today. In addition, building standards evolved. The issues of robustness and fatigue resistance of road bridges have only gained in importance in the last few decades. It was actually assumed that the bridges would last 80 to 100 years. Today we realize that various bridges, our problem children, will only be 60 years old. We have just started on the new construction of the Thalaubach bridge on the A7 south of Fulda. The old bridge is only 54 years old and already has to be replaced today due to structural weaknesses that cannot be repaired technically.
