The German Federal Government has recently adopted its infrastructure plan running until 2030. The plan has allocated 1.518 billion euros of electrification and expansion to 2 tracks between Lübeck and Puttgarden, as Germany has committed to do in the State Treaty on the Fehmarn connection with Denmark. Currently, the plan includes an addition of the railway from one to two tracks, which until now only has been designated for speeds of 160 km/h. Part of the rail line will be a construction of a new line along the A1 Motorway.
According STRING’s information, the developer, DB Netz, is also investigating the options and costs for an upgrade to speeds up to 200 km/h.
On the Danish side, the expansion of the railway between Copenhagen to Puttgarden planned to handle speeds up to 200 km/h. The section between Copenhagen and Ringsted is to open in 2018 with trains running with speeds of up to 250 km / h.
Road construction
The German investment plan allocates about 250 million Euro, barely 1.9 billion Danish Crowns, which is to be used for expansion of the road from the end of the highway at Heiligenhafen to the Fehmarn Tunnel as a four-lane motorway.
The German infrastructure plan does not contain any plans for upgrading or expansion of the Femernsund connection, an older combined rail and road bridge between the German mainland and the island of Fehmarn. The Fehmarnsund Bridge, which is protected, is in poor condition and in need of renovating, is already a bottleneck today.
Maintenance rather than developing new designs
The Federal Government’s Infrastructure Plan for 2030 allocates a total of 269.6 billion Euro, approximately 2,008 billion Danish Crowns. These funds must finance 1,000 so-called ‘priority projects’. In this context, the principle is maintenance rather than new constructions, according to the Federal Ministry of Transport.
The funds are divided between 49 percent for road projects, 42 percent for rail projects and 9 percent for the waterways.
Citizen’s opinions
The German Infrastructure Plan 2030 has already had its premiere: The citizens of Germany had six weeks of opportunity to express their opinions on the plan. The Federal Ministry of Transport then received almost 39,000 comments.
The Green Party, who sits in opposition in the Bundestag, and the environmental organization NABU, not surpisingly, criticized the Infrastructure Plan: In their opinion, the Plan excessively backed roads and cars and consisted of a collection of inconsistent individual projects and a general idea.
For now, the Bundestag must adopt the related construction and expansion laws. The current infrastructure plan dates from 2003.
