Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

Post by murphaph »

Heard the surprising news on the radio today that the federal government is pushing ahead with planning in the 17th section of the A100. This would continue from the currently under construction 16th section which was itself highly contentious. I never expected it to be extended any further. It's a proper urban motorway the A100. It'll take considerable CPO and demolition to deliver.

The Berlin government can not actually stop this even if it wanted to as Autobahns are federal government business.

https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/articl ... ebaut.html
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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That is surprising! The extension currently under way was astonishing when it was approved and there seem to be decidedly mixed reports about how necessary it is. A further extension will be even more difficult because the route up to Frankfurter Allee is even more densely built up and has more railway lines to negotiate, plus a crossing of the Spree where there doesn't seem to be much space between the existing road and rail bridges.

While it's a federal project and Berlin won't have a veto, there must be a planning process to be followed, where the city could make a formal objection.

I wonder if the intention is to complete the ring one day?
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

Post by Peter Freeman »

I find it encouraging to see that a dense major European city is still willing to press ahead with a middle-suburbs ring road in a motorway format. I have no experience of either this road or Berlin but, simply by Google Maps observation, they appear not to be shy about tunnelling. Also, the dominant GSJ type is signalised diamond, including single-points - I spot only two or three interchanges that are roundabout-ish. My sort of road.

I also wonder whether they will complete the ring. Stages 16 and 17 appear to take it to about 75%, with the still-to-do parts in the north looking easier.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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Peter Freeman wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 02:31I find it encouraging to see that a dense major European city is still willing to press ahead with a middle-suburbs ring road in a motorway format. I have no experience of either this road or Berlin but, simply by Google Maps observation, they appear not to be shy about tunnelling. Also, the dominant GSJ type is signalised diamond, including single-points - I spot only two or three interchanges that are roundabout-ish. My sort of road.
Germany doesn't like roundabouts at all! Its autobahn network overwhelmingly uses cookie-cutter diamond, folded diamond, trumpet and cloverleaf junctions. They are remarkably uniform in design.
I also wonder whether they will complete the ring. Stages 16 and 17 appear to take it to about 75%, with the still-to-do parts in the north looking easier.
Given the surprise introduction of stage 17 you have to wonder whether these thoughts are germinating in the minds of the German transport ministry. But I've done some light reading and now I'm not sure it's worth giving all that much thought.

The Wikipedia page has some nice detail on planning and timescales, but in short there are two reasons not to get too excited. The first is that the rest of the A100 was essentially completed in 1981, apart from a gap of less than a kilometre at Sachsendamm where the route used an existing street to duck under a railway line because of the bizarre situation that the railway tracks were managed by the East Germans. Reunification solved that problem and the gap was closed in 1996. But that exception aside, when work started on stage 16 the A100 had been unchanged for the best part of 40 years. So this is not a ring road project with any momentum, it's really an abandoned attempt to build a ring road where a couple of short unbuilt lengths have been resurrected.

The second is that stages 16 and 17 are accounted for in Berlin's land use plan, but no further extensions of the A100 are. So in many ways while it's surprising that stage 17 is actually being taken forward, it is at least anticipated by the long term planning strategy for the city. It would be surprising to a different order of magnitude if a further extension was then proposed.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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Yeah the land use plan used to include the whole ring but everything after the 17th section has already been removed from it so it's very unlikely to be extended any further. Still, I thought the 16th section was the end of the road, literally. For us the missing north eastern bit would be the most useful bit if it was ever to be built. We live in Brieselang, a dormitory town, roughly west north west of Berlin. My father in law lives in east Berlin, in the north east. We can currently take the long way round with the A10 or barrel straight through the city. On Sundays we would sometimes drive through the city just to see it as we don't go in to it too much any more. Any other day we would take the longer A10 route so as not to be sitting in traffic all the way. An (unlikely) A100 completion would allow us to take the B5 expressway to the Berlin boundary, then the fairly free flowing Heerstraße more or less all the way to the A100 and then we could bypass the city centre to the north. Having said all that, by the time any of it was open, the journey might not be necessary any more if you catch my drift.

I was always strongly in favour of the 16th section as I own property down near Sonnenallee and traffic coming off the existing A100 often diverts along my road there to get over to the Elsenbrücke to cross the Spree. The current extension will remove all that traffic from surface streets, but it went largely through industrial areas and allotments so there was little demolition of homes to bring it to construction. The 17th section looks like it will require a lot more demolition.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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Whilst I warmly welcome this extension won't it just result in a queue at its northern end where it will finish on surface street? Surely an 18th section to A114 would make it a viable through route.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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Truvelo wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 11:53 Whilst I warmly welcome this extension won't it just result in a queue at its northern end where it will finish on surface street? Surely an 18th section to A114 would make it a viable through route.
That comment can be made about many, or even most, projects that are built in stages. I can think of innumerable examples. If that problem was allowed to halt a stage, then many roads that can't be funded in one go would never get started.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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The current terminus of the A100 where traffic departs the motorway at Grenzallee is well known to me as I lived in that part of Berlin for a few years and often drove through there. I never got stuck in a long tailback I have to admit. I guess there is still some relics of the cold war being felt here. Family ties were cut with the building of the wall. People lost touch I guess and travel across the former boundary is probably not where it would have been had the wall never been built. The currently under construction section crosses that former boundary.

Even if travel patterns had continued to evolve normally in Berlin, I suspect the 17th extension would still help because it does bring traffic to some major arterial routes, albeit surface ones. For example, when we used to live down there, we'd make that journey to north east Berlin I was talking about earlier. That involved surface rat runs all the way to Landsberger Allee. The extensions would bring us most of the way on a motorway and would greatly ease that journey. Not everyone would be going the whole way, just as with the current A100. Little traffic actually comes off at Grenzallee to continue "around the city". The vast majority flows onto the A113 towards the A10/A13 junction. Notwithstanding this, bringing the ring at least up to the A114 would clearly bring a lot of value but I doubt it'll ever happen. I'm really surprised it's crossing the Spree at all.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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Peter Freeman wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 13:44
Truvelo wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 11:53 Whilst I warmly welcome this extension won't it just result in a queue at its northern end where it will finish on surface street? Surely an 18th section to A114 would make it a viable through route.
That comment can be made about many, or even most, projects that are built in stages. I can think of innumerable examples. If that problem was allowed to halt a stage, then many roads that can't be funded in one go would never get started.
But I believe the final plan will mean the A100 will never reach another motorway. An extension to the A114 was just my suggestion and all the official documentation I can find means it will end short of there. The current terminus at Grenzallee isn't a problem as the A113 forms the through route. If the A113 didn't exist then I can imagine there would be huge congestion in the area.
murphaph wrote:Little traffic actually comes off at Grenzallee to continue "around the city".
Won't sections 16 and 17 change this? I suspect little traffic continues round the city as it involves surface streets and has the same issues as South London in the form of suppressed demand. What I can see happening here is what killed the M23 north of J7 - this is no other motorway for it to dump traffic on.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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It might change things a bit but it's the same at the other end of the A100 at Seestraße. There aren't huge queues there either, outside rush hour anyway. The historical development of Berlin as two cities still impacts travel patterns today. It may change, in time. The A100 isn't used as a bypass of Berlin by most traffic. It's local going from one part of the city to another. It was built to do just that, as an alternative to the GDR controlled Ringbahn. That's why it was built with bus stops and AFAIK the only bus stop on an Autobahn in Germany is still on the A111 and this is a legacy of the A100 bus corridor alternative to the S-Bahn.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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murphaph wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 15:05 It might change things a bit but it's the same at the other end of the A100 at Seestraße. There aren't huge queues there either, outside rush hour anyway. The historical development of Berlin as two cities still impacts travel patterns today. It may change, in time. The A100 isn't used as a bypass of Berlin by most traffic. It's local going from one part of the city to another. It was built to do just that, as an alternative to the GDR controlled Ringbahn. That's why it was built with bus stops and AFAIK the only bus stop on an Autobahn in Germany is still on the A111 and this is a legacy of the A100 bus corridor alternative to the S-Bahn.
I'll defer to wiser heads on this one but glancing at a map suggests a more unified road network was probably planned - but this would make sense as some of these plans go back to the 30s.

The A111 for instance curves sharply under Tiegel Airport to join the A100 but there's a screamingly obvious link eastwards pointing directly at Wedding. On old maps this route seems to have stopped at Stolpe just shy of the Berlin Wall.

Given the only autobahn route into the city was via AVUS and Checkpoint Bravo the A100 will have been a fantastic distribution network for transit traffic at the time. It's very surprising that it's being extended - but European cities are still happy to build new roads in order to remove traffic off old ones. It's just here in the UK where we go for massive induced demand development generating routes and then wonder why the roads don't work.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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Oh yeah there was a heap of stuff planned that never materialised for various reasons, mostly war and partition. Berlin lost a few motorway numbers in the recent past as the admission was essentially made that these stubs would never be finished so they just became long slip roads of the A100 in some cases. The "islanded" tunnel under Tiergarten which is the B96 today was originally conceived as part of a north-south motorway route. The northern end of the A103 belies the fact it was never supposed to terminated there, and on and on.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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This may be surprising from a British perspective but it is hardly news that Germany builds lots of autobahn, including in urban areas. The UK (and especially England) is pretty much alone in its policy of net degradation of city highway infrastructure.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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jackal wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 10:32 This may be surprising from a British perspective but it is hardly news that Germany builds lots of autobahn, including in urban areas. The UK (and especially England) is pretty much alone in its policy of net degradation of city highway infrastructure.
Actually German highway plans are constantly attacked from the green movement. There aren't many proposed routes going ahead these days, and some autobahns are unlikely to ever be completed.

The same is happening across Europe. Right now in France there is huge opposition to the A133/A134 at Rouen, the A110 relief for the A10 is on hiatus, and there are numerous sometime nevers like the Lyon West Bypass.

It's false to say only the UK is trying to remove urban infrastructure - the French have removed the A186 entirely to build a tramway instead, and there are plans to remove the A6/A7 in Lyon, whether or not the West Bypass goes ahead.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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Bryn666 wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 12:16 The same is happening across Europe. Right now in France there is huge opposition to the A133/A134 at Rouen...
But that's not the N28/N338 upgrade where a simple grade separation of the existing route through town would provide a continuous motorway standard road end to end. The only reason I've used that route is to avoid the A29 tolls and cut the corner which I'm sure no one in Rouen would allow such construction to take place simply for the benefit of shunpikers. I believe the A133/A134 plan is for an eastern bypass outside the urban area which isn't really an urban motorway.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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Truvelo wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 12:37
Bryn666 wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 12:16 The same is happening across Europe. Right now in France there is huge opposition to the A133/A134 at Rouen...
But that's not the N28/N338 upgrade where a simple grade separation of the existing route through town would provide a continuous motorway standard road end to end. The only reason I've used that route is to avoid the A29 tolls and cut the corner which I'm sure no one in Rouen would allow such construction to take place simply for the benefit of shunpikers. I believe the A133/A134 plan is for an eastern bypass outside the urban area which isn't really an urban motorway.
Correct, but the suggestion that there's no opposition to motorways in Europe - urban or not - doesn't hold up.

And in any case, the viaduct from the D18 at Pont Mathilde into the city centre has been closed for good because it's structurally unsound and will be demolished. The slip roads off the Pont Mathilde have already been realigned to enable N28-D18 priority. So the suggestion of no net loss of urban infrastructure doesn't hold up either.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

Post by Peter Freeman »

Chris5156 wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 06:35 ... The first is that the rest of the A100 was essentially completed in 1981 ... when work started on stage 16 the A100 had been unchanged for the best part of 40 years. So this is not a ring road project with any momentum, it's really an ... attempt to build a ring road where a couple of short unbuilt lengths have been resurrected.
The resurrection reminds me of Derby's inner ring road. About half of it was built in the late 60's/early 70's, when I lived there for a while, to a cute urban motorway standard. Sort of like Coventry, Leeds or Birmingham IRR. Then all construction simply halted. Both ends were unsatisfactory, and though it was somewhat useful anyway, it was such a disappointment.

Eventually (perhaps around 2005?), some quite un-typically imaginative councillors succeeded in resurrecting the vision. I saw from afar that a resumption was soon underway, and I made sure to review the result next time I was in the UK. The completion is not urban motorway, but mainly a pragmatic re-purposing, renovating and linking of existing surface streets. Far, far better than nothing.

By Google Maps, it appears that Berlin has some continuous E-W roads north of its centre, continuing east from the NW end of A100, at the correct radius. They appear to be wide grassy boulevardes, some carrying trams, that could be enhanced quite readily. Seestrasse, Osloer, Bornholmer, Wisbyer, Ostseestrasse, Michelangelostrasse. Perhaps insert a flyover or underpass or two, but mainly just widen and modernise. Then - wait for it - a 4km tunnel to ElsenBrucke. Like Derby: good enough.

Now, shall I migrate to the fantasy forum ... ? :coat:
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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Bryn666 wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 12:16
jackal wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 10:32 This may be surprising from a British perspective but it is hardly news that Germany builds lots of autobahn, including in urban areas. The UK (and especially England) is pretty much alone in its policy of net degradation of city highway infrastructure.
Actually German highway plans are constantly attacked from the green movement. There aren't many proposed routes going ahead these days, and some autobahns are unlikely to ever be completed.

The same is happening across Europe. Right now in France there is huge opposition to the A133/A134 at Rouen, the A110 relief for the A10 is on hiatus, and there are numerous sometime nevers like the Lyon West Bypass.

It's false to say only the UK is trying to remove urban infrastructure - the French have removed the A186 entirely to build a tramway instead, and there are plans to remove the A6/A7 in Lyon, whether or not the West Bypass goes ahead.
I said "net degradation". While there is the odd case of autoroutes being removed (or maybe being removed) in French cities, there is clearly a net increase in provision, which is not the case in English cities as a whole.

Conveniently there are figures for total km of motorways built in EU countries, which cuts through the noise of individual cases. You'll see that the UK added 75.7km between 2000 and 2011 (the most recent year with data), compared to 1,059km in Germany and 1,344km in France (this uses the EU definition of a motorway, which perhaps includes some HQDC).

It is obviously the case that Germany and France build far more motorways. The above numbers don't break down by urban/rural, but given no motorways have been built in English cities for decades, it's pretty clear that the general rule applies in cities.
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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To me it seems that the Berlin case is quite a happy medium. The A10 outer motorway ring road means that no long-distance traffic needs to go through the city. There is a "local" motorway distribution network which crosses the city with quite a few access points, so that I would imagine most areas in the city are no more than 15 minutes' drive from the motorway. And then there is a dense street network which allows for allocation of space to public transport, walking and cycling. (Not to mention the very extensive rail network in the city, of course.)

By analogy there are huge areas of London which are more than 15 minutes' drive from the nearest motorway or even dual carriageway. Tomorrow I have to drive to Streatham which is one of the worst black holes of accessibility. :evil:
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Re: Berlin A100 Stadtautobahn to be further extended

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The A100 in Berlin is still, more than 30 years on, quite apparently a onetime West Berlin project, as can be seen on a map. The work currently in hand is the first extension of this across the former border.

It was a very useful route for me just a few months after the wall came down, the hotel agency in Tegel airport gave me a place in Treptower Park, right across the city, but the A100 in a rental car did me most of the distance there short order. It was the first time I had seen variable speed limits, the illuminated variable signage of the type that has now spread to Britain. Incidentally, a piece of The Wall, which I picked up from just about where the new works cross the alignment, where it had all been recently smashed down, is now built into my garden wall. Not a tiny piece that gets sold to tourists but a great chunk of decidedly low quality concrete, which seems to have used beach pebbles for aggregate.
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