Once a week, ex-rulers Eberhard Diepgen (CDU) and Walter Momper (SPD) discuss topics that move the capital in the BZ Berlin. Today it is about the controversial further construction of the A100 city motorway.
Eberhard Diepgen: Yes, the construction is long overdue
There is no major transport construction project without a heated argument. And each party to the dispute believes in possession of the pure and future-oriented truth.
It is also understandable when immediate residents want to prevent the street in front of their windows, while others are looking for a quick and traffic-free way into the city to their place of work.
Planning law, with its overly long deadlines, hearings and planning changes, also provokes disputes between interest groups. So it makes sense that the federal government has recently become responsible for the planning and completion of city motorways, and that the focus has therefore been on the interests of the city as a whole and nationally.
The basic idea of the A100 and its expansion with the 16th and 17th construction phase up to Storkower Straße is the connection of the eastern districts of the city to the western ring road and to the A113 with the economic growth areas around Adlershof and the airport in Schönefeld. That’s not out of time. It’s overdue.
Congestion, noise and poor air quality can only be kept out of inner-city districts with efficient roads. Even climate-neutral cars need roads.
Critics suppress the fact that our society is becoming more and more mobile and flexible in terms of time. This means that optimal connections to the residential areas north of Storkower Strasse are becoming increasingly important.
The need for transport cannot only be satisfied by bicycles and public transport. The idea that we could divert the private transport that has remained necessary around the city seems to me to be half-baked.
That would certainly not save energy either. And Berlin is a metropolitan area, comparable to the Ruhr area, and you don’t just need efficient transport routes through the city for delivery traffic.
It is best to have as many of them underground as possible. This is expensive, but more environmentally friendly and resident-friendly.
Walter Momper: Yes, that makes sense
It makes sense to complete the city ring with a connection between Dreieck Neukölln and Storkower Straße.
The traffic coming from the east and from the north of Berlin will then be able to flow southwards more easily onto the Berlin inner city ring road and the connection to Dresden. Traffic coming from the south also flows more easily to the center and east of Berlin.
Incidentally, the traffic does not need to be generated; it is already there today.
When you see how many drivers use the Dresden Autobahn and the inner-city access from the A113 and how many are stuck in traffic behind Storkower Strasse to get south, then you know that the volume of traffic for this section of road that is to be built is already there .
Traffic coming from the south is also constantly causing traffic jams on the A113. The myth of “creating traffic through road construction” is wrong in this case. And it is primarily about pure commercial traffic.
Of course, the current coalition in Berlin has agreed that the 17th construction phase with the connection to Storkower Straße will not be built in this legislative period. But that says nothing about the future legislative periods.
Even if the federal government has its hat on at the moment, it will hardly build this motorway against the will of the country. So you have to wait until there is a Senate that also considers the construction to be necessary.
With the participation of the Greens and the Left, however, this is not possible. Of course, the construction of the highway in the city center is very expensive. This is due to the existing development, which stands in the way, and the acquisition of land for the motorway construction, which is laborious and expensive.
Let’s wait for further developments. But even the – and correct – reduction in private transport desired by this coalition will not change the fact that the volume of commercial transport from southern Germany and to southern Brandenburg and Dresden will remain as strong as before. There will hardly be a reduction there.
