The Federal Administrative Court (BVG) stops the expansion of the highway 20. Thus, traffic planners and industry in the north have suffered another setback.
The quarrels around the highway 20, the so-called Baltic Sea motorway north to Hamburg, continue. The Federal Administrative Court stopped the development of the motorway, because it sees negligence in environmental and species protection in Section 4. The transport industry and the North German economy took this with great regret in a first opinion. According to the Schleswig-Holstein Chamber of Industry and Commerce: “The judgment will again cause considerable delays in the planning and realization of the motorway,” said Friederike C. Kühn, President of the IHK Schleswig-Holstein. “We are now counting on the Department of Transportation to focus very much on the error-healing process.”
Many mistakes in traffic planning
The BVG had previously declared the plan approval decision of the Ministry of Transport in Schleswig-Holstein for the construction section between the motorway junction to A7 and Wittenborn illegal and not enforceable. The reason for this is a possible deterioration of the surface and groundwater as well as adverse effects on Europe’s largest bat habitat “Segeberger limestone caves”. This now needs to be improved for the Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of Transport.
As a result, the construction of the A 20 will be postponed for several more years. For the transport industry, it can only be a small consolation that Schleswig-Holstein Transport Minister Bernd Buchholz wants to continue to realize the Baltic Sea motorway, because the judgment will delay the construction for many more years. But the traffic jams and the almost unbearable traffic situation are already present today and will intensify even further, especially in the south of Hamburg, because there are also many construction sites there. A traffic relief by the A20 would have been very welcome there now.
Search for new traffic routes
For a port city with an internationally important port, this can lead to long-term disadvantages. The planners of the global supply chains in the companies do not wait until the traffic in the Hanseatic city runs again. They are looking for alternatives. The road users should do the same. An advanced navigation system with real-time information on the traffic situation would be a start. A switch to other modes of transport remains another option. Because as it looks at the moment, the transport industry can wait a long time for a relief of traffic in and around Hamburg.
