Bodensee expressway

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Template: Infobox high-ranking road / maintenance / AT-S
Expressway S18 in Austria
Bodensee expressway
 Bodensee expressway Bodensee expressway
map
Course of the S 18
       In planning
Basic data
Operator: ASFINAG
Overall length: 7.5 / 8.6 km
  of which in planning: 7.5 / 8.6 km

State :

Vorarlberg

The S18 Bodensee Schnellstraße is a planned expressway in Vorarlberg and part of the European roads E43 and E60 . It is intended to connect the Vorarlberg Rhine Valley motorway with the Swiss A1 and A13 motorways. It has been discussed since the 1980s, but has so far failed due to various complaint procedures and changes in the legal situation.

In the past, a route was planned via a junction near Lauterach , but it is no longer feasible. For this reason, a successor solution was presented in 2011, the evaluation of which was completed at the end of 2014 and decided in the Austrian National Council in the course of 2016 (?). It provides one of two variants to be selected (variant Z and variant CP), which are between 7.5 and 8.6 km long. The expressway is to branch off the A14 at Dornbirn and join the A1 / E60 and A13 / E43 at the St. Margrethen exit in Switzerland . According to ASFINAG , the final route will be decided in 2020.

History and planning

In 1964, together with the construction of the St. Margrethen exit, the stump was completed for continuation to Austria.

1980-2010

The S18 was originally planned as the Bodensee Autobahn (A15). However, this project failed and the follow-up project Bodensee Schnellstraße (S18) was started. In the 1980s, the various routes and variants were initially negotiated before the first negotiation under the Landscape Protection Act took place in 1992. In 1994 the planning documents for the route were made public, and discussions with citizens increased. There were numerous variants for the route, in 1997 the variant from Lauterach to Sankt Margrethen was finally determined.

In Höchst , an 810 m long tunnel was to be built to protect the neighbors, as well as a border station to Switzerland and Austria. The expressway would have been built with two lanes throughout (one lane in each direction) with hard shoulders. Since this route would have passed very close to the “Lauteracher Ried” bird sanctuary ( European protected area Lauteracher Ried ) and would have led to a deterioration of this habitat, the EU Commission initiated a complaint procedure against the Republic of Austria. According to the judgment of the European Court of Justice of March 23, 2006, the planned route leads through a "de facto bird sanctuary", that is, an area which, due to its importance for bird protection, should be placed under protection, but is not legally protected.

The complaint against the approval procedure itself was not allowed by the ECJ, however, because the procedure was initiated before Austria joined the EU .

The Austrian Constitutional Court (VfGH) has now repealed the train path ordinance. Reason: Although the planned road has a minimum distance of 150 meters from the Lauteracher Ried landscape protection area a little further to the north, other areas worthy of protection (de facto bird protection areas) are very much affected. This was not sufficiently taken into account in the route approval. Since only the Lauteracher Ried was considered in the planning of the Bodensee expressway, but not the other regions to be included in the bird sanctuary, the "considerations on the environmental compatibility of the route then prescribed were insufficient for the appropriate decision-making (...)", judged the constitutional judges .

The requests for the cancellation of part of the route were therefore granted, "although the illegality affects the entire route".

Construction of the S18 was scheduled to begin in 2007, with completion by 2011. Since the planned route is no longer feasible, a consensus-oriented planning process started in 2007 in which all possible solutions were examined and other measures based on the new transport concept from the state of Vorarlberg than the construction of an expressway should be included. The first interim reports showed that only a combination of an expansion of public transport and a relief road could offer the desired results.

Current developments

In April 2011, two of the 20 variants submitted were still under discussion. (Variant Z and variant CP)

Variant Z:
dashed black: tunnel sections
orange: trough sections with noise and Flood protection
Variant CP

In the final report, the Vorarlberg state government was recommended to prioritize "Variant Z", the reed crossing with an underground route from Dornbirn-Nord to Lustenau-Nord and further on to Switzerland. If this variant is not feasible, the "variant CP", an eastern bypass from the L204 via Lustenau-Nord to Switzerland, should be pursued. As an early measure, the construction of the border crossing including a new customs office in Switzerland from the St. Margrethen junction of the Swiss A1 to the L40 in Höchst-Brugg, directly after the border, was recommended.

The evaluation of the variants recommended in the planning process was completed at the end of 2014. It was found that in principle both variants, both in two-lane and four-lane versions, can be approved. Depending on the variant, number of lanes and construction method, costs between 526 and 893 million euros were estimated (price basis 2025). In September 2016, the “Strategic Transport Assessment” (SP-V) was completed and assessed positively by the Ministry of Transport. In December 2016, the law regarding the newly planned S 18 was changed, as the connection point from the A 14 should no longer be in Lauterach, but further south in Dornbirn.

In January 2018, the authorities of Austria and Switzerland informed that the decisions on the construction of the motorway including the new customs facility had been made in principle and that concrete planning was in progress. In 2017, Austria included the planned route as S 18 in the Federal Roads Act and commissioned the motorway operator Asfinag with a preliminary project. The motorway will be provided with a joint customs facility that will be built by Switzerland. The corresponding area has already been eliminated on the Swiss side and the order for the development of the general project has been awarded.

One of 18 test boreholes in Dornbirn's municipality for the S 18 in winter 2018

According to ASFINAG , the final route will be decided in 2020. A total of 170 test drillings for the S 18 and the Lustenau bypass have been started since summer 2018.

Web links

Commons : S18 Bodensee Schnellstraße  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

credentials

  1. a b Swisstopo: aerial photo 1966
  2. Jörg Krummenacher: Projects on Road and Rail: Faster Paths to North and East In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of December 9, 2016
  3. ^ Judgment of the European Court of Justice
  4. ^ Judgment of the Constitutional Court
  5. 3rd interim report planning process
  6. vol.at: Vorarlberg conservationists announce lawsuit against road construction , accessed on August 24, 2011
  7. Final report and recommendation. (PDF; 3.3 MB) State of Vorarlberg, October 25, 2011, accessed on November 23, 2014 .
  8. Riedstrasse is now taking shape. Vorarlberger Nachrichten, November 22, 2014, accessed on November 23, 2014 .
  9. a b S 18 Bodensee Schnellstraße junction Dornbirn to the state border at Höchst. ASFINAG, accessed on July 30, 2017 .
  10. S18: Construction will start in 2024/25 at the earliest. In: ORF. September 5, 2016, accessed November 9, 2016 .
  11. Jörg Krummenacher: Switzerland and Austria are coming closer to each other In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of January 27, 2018
  12. Vorarlberg: Drilling for S 18 in summer 2018 , vol.at of May 30, 2018.