Bundesstrasse 456
The federal highway 456 (abbreviation: B 456 ) is a federal highway in Germany; it crosses the Taunus and leads from the A 661 near Oberursel (Taunus) via Bad Homburg vor der Höhe , Usingen and Grävenwiesbach to Weilburg , where the road connects a little further north with the federal highway 49 .
meaning
The B 456 is an important connection between the rural region in the Hintertaunus and the Rhine-Main area . Between Bad Homburg and Wehrheim , in the area of the Saalburg Pass , the B 456 is three-lane, otherwise two-lane in oncoming traffic.
Tourist sights
There are a number of tourist attractions and natural monuments right on the street or in the immediate vicinity.
The partially restored Saalburg Roman fort is located on the Taunus ridge between Bad Homburg and Wehrheim . Shortly thereafter, the Lochmühle leisure park is close to the route . Usingen is a former residence of the Nassau-Usingen family , but the Eschbacher Klippen, a few kilometers away, are also worth seeing .
On the route to Weilburg there is the Weilburg zoo right next to the road and the junction to the Kubacher Kristallhöhle , which is a few kilometers away, is at the same height . Weilburg itself is home to a renaissance castle , the Lahn bridge and a baroque old town as well as other tourist attractions.
Accident blackspot
The Saalburg Pass is a hot spot for accidents. In particular, the descent towards Bad Homburg and there the so-called Horex curve are often underestimated, especially by two-wheelers because of the good development.
history
For the traffic predecessors of today's B 456 see:
construction
The route of today's road was built between 1817 and 1836 by the Duchy of Nassau and the Landgraviate of Hessen-Homburg as a chaussée from south to north. The work was carried out by subjects in bondage . In Homburg, the work was under the direction of the Chaussée director, forest master Franz Lotz. The extent of the compulsory labor of the individual communities was based on the ordinance on Chaussée administration of September 12, 1809. Especially after the hunger winter of 1816/17 , the construction was a heavy burden for the population. The Saalburg Pass was built in 1817, Grävenwiesbach was built in 1829, and Weilburg was reached in 1836.
Post-war extensions
In the period after the Second World War , the volume of private traffic increased massively. A bypass around Dornholzhausen was therefore built in the 1950s. The intersection on the Vordertaunus side was now the Peters-Pneu intersection.
The next expansion step was necessary in the 1960s. The road was expanded to three lanes in the area of the Saalburg Pass (two lanes uphill and one downhill). At the top of the pass, the road was relocated away from the Saalburg fort. The old road was only minimally dismantled and is now used in sections as a parking lot for visitors to the Saalburg, otherwise as a well-developed cycle and hiking path towards Obernhain.
The Wehrheim bypass has been completed and opened to traffic since the late 1980s .
Since June 2005, the previous route through the old town of Weilburg has been relocated to a new suburban bypass , which, with construction costs of 23.4 million euros over 1.2 km, is the most expensive kilometer of road in Germany to date. In addition to the Weilstrasse tunnel, the 146 m long Oberlahnbrücke Weilburg, a semi-integral structure, and the city-owned multi-storey car park are the most important structures in this suburb of Weilburg .
Expansion plans
The Saalburghöhe continues to be a bottleneck factor for car traffic - especially in rush hour traffic, which leads to traffic jams almost every day. 27,000 cars pass through the pass every day. An expansion has therefore been discussed since the 1970s. Capacity problems primarily cause two places: the Peters-Pneu intersection and the narrowing of two to one lane behind the crest. The narrowing at the summit could be solved by expanding it to four lanes. A release of two lanes each in the direction of rush hour traffic , controlled by changing light traffic systems , is only possible in Germany under restrictive conditions and was also not implemented. To improve the flow of traffic, speed limits were introduced at the top. These are monitored by stationary measuring systems. The four-lane expansion of the 7.9 km long southern section between the Wehrheimer Kreuz and the A661 was included in the urgent need in 2016 as part of the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030 .
Peters-Pneu-Renova intersection, Bad Homburg
The PPR intersection in Bad Homburg- Dornholzhausen takes its name from a former tire factory , the Peters Pneu Renova , which was located there. It is the intersection of the B 456 with the also heavily frequented Saalburgstrasse (formerly B 455 ), which connects Dornholzhausen with the city center. How to defuse this bottleneck has been the subject of longstanding political controversy. Since the 1970s, the municipalities of the Usinger Land have been calling for a height-free crossing structure , and following a decision, the city of Bad Homburg vor der Höhe relies on traffic avoidance and guidance due to the high costs.
Extensive investments have been made to avoid traffic. The most important of these was the redesign of the Taunusbahn in 1992 with new vehicles, an improved cycle, partial connection of the trains to Frankfurt Central Station and later the partial reactivation of the line to Brandoberndorf. However, due to the high level of settlement activity in the Usinger Land, this very successful measure was not enough to solve the traffic problem at the Peters-Pneu intersection. As part of traffic control, the citizens' initiative in Bad Homburg, which opposes the expansion, emphasized the use of the road in the Köpperner Tal. This leads directly to the A 5 . Despite the extensive expansion of the Köpperner Kreuz and the Friedberg junction, the alternative route was not accepted to such an extent that the traffic load at the Peters-Pneu intersection would have decreased significantly. In addition to the approximately five kilometers longer route to Frankfurt am Main , the risk of congestion on the A 5 also contributes to this lack of acceptance.
The expansion of the Peters-Pneu intersection is described as an urgent need in the federal transport infrastructure plan. In 2005, a tunnel solution was developed in an expert report, which is the basis of the planning. The cost of such an expansion was put at eight million euros and rose to an estimated value of 21.5 million euros by 2011. In 2010, the city of Bad Homburg decided to support the construction of a tunnel, but requested a significant extension of the tunnel. According to estimates at the time, this variant would cost 110 million euros. In September 2012, the district was prohibited from financing the planning company by the regional council due to the high level of debt, so Bad Homburg withdrew its financing commitment in November, which means that the tunnel project is considered to have failed for the time being.
The city and district then aimed at the so-called small expansion of the existing traffic light intersection by mid-2014, which, according to estimates at the time, should cost around 220,000 euros, but will not be realized before mid-2018. In the case of a small expansion, it is planned to set up two right-turn lanes without traffic lights (coming from Dornholzhausen in the direction of Oberursel and from Oberursel in the direction of Bad Homburg city center) and to convert the three lanes coming from Saalburg in such a way that the right left turn lane towards Bad Homburg city center an additional straight lane towards Oberursel becomes.
In addition to the small expansion, a working group made up of representatives from the district and the city of Bad Homburg, which has been set up since August 2016, deals with alternative and long-term sustainable solutions, including larger and traffic light-free expansion options (e.g. a roundabout) beyond a long tunnel.
literature
- Günter Heupke: Over the height - history of Saalburgstraße . In: Yearbook of the Hochtaunuskreis 2002, ISBN 3-7973-0784-5 , pp. 144–151.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Project Information System (PRINS) for Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030: B 456 OU Wehrheim - Oberursel , accessed on 23 July 2017th
- ^ Regret instead of insulting after saying no in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of November 9, 2012
- ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of March 16, 2005: Feasibility study for the expansion of the PPR intersection presented
- ^ Frankfurter Rundschau of December 21, 2011: Debt budget approved - coalition pushes through millions for tunnel project.
- ^ FAZ of November 9, 2012
- ^ FR of December 13, 2013
- ↑ Taunus-Zeitung of July 26, 2016