Federal motorway 540
| Federal motorway 540 in Germany | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Operator: | State Office for Road Construction NRW | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Start of the street: |
Juchen ( 51 ° 6 ′ N , 6 ° 32 ′ E ) |
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| End of street: |
Südstadt (Grevenbroich) ( 51 ° 4 ′ N , 6 ° 37 ′ E ) |
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| Overall length: | 7 km | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Development condition: | 2 × 2 lanes with hard shoulder | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Junction Gustorf in the direction of Jüchen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Course of the road
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Map with all coordinates: The federal autobahn 540 (abbreviation: BAB 540 ) - short form: Autobahn 540 (abbreviation: A 540 ) - was a federal autobahn in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and ran for a length of around seven km from Jüchen to the south of Grevenbroich . At the beginning of 2020, the autobahn was downgraded to a federal highway and will be integrated into the route of federal highway 59 .
course
The route has two lanes and one hard shoulder in each direction and starts at the Jüchen junction (12) of the BAB 46 ( Heinsberg - Neuss ). As far as the Gustorf junction , the route leads in a long straight across the tilted and renatured area of the former Garzweiler I opencast mine . Then it swings more in an easterly direction and leads through a wooded area to cross the Erft just before the Frimmersdorf junction . Until the end of the autobahn at the Grevenbroich-Süd roundabout , the route lies directly on the northern edge of the Vollrather Höhe , a prominent high point with a wind farm . The roundabout connects the autobahn with the B 59 or L 361 ( Kölner Landstrasse ) and the Norsk Hydro aluminum plant .
history
Realized plans
The original plan was to replace the B 59 with the motorway from Grevenbroich via Rommerskirchen to Cologne - Bocklemünd with a connection to the A 1 . This route would have represented the main connection between Cologne and the western Lower Rhine area around Mönchengladbach , especially since the A 61 , which today takes on this task, was only built in the mid-1980s. The only section of this planned motorway route was built between 1975 and 1978 between Jüchen and Grevenbroich.
Expansion of the unrealized route
The section between Rommerskirchen and the connection to the A 1 near Cologne-Bocklemünd has now been implemented as a bypass of the 59n federal highway. The section between Grevenbroich and Rommerskirchen is still planned as an extension of the B 59.
The B 59n bypass road is a parallel road to the B 59 ( Venloer Straße ) and its course roughly corresponds to the old plans for the A 540. It has now been partially expanded to three lanes in order to enable safe overtaking on several sections, as the well-developed section used by many trucks . The newly built bridges do not allow a four-lane widening.
particularities
Demolition due to open pit mining
The approximately two-kilometer section between the Jüchen junction ( BAB 46 ) and the Gustorf junction was closed to traffic on September 1, 1991 and then demolished because the area through which the route led was open to lignite mining (Nordfeld in the open pit Garzweiler). The lignite was mined in this area for three years, and three more years were needed to backfill the pit and renaturalize the landscape. The restoration of the freeway route began in 1996, and at the end of 1997 the restored freeway route including a new bridge to cross the Grubenrandstrasse was opened to traffic. The total costs for this company amounted to around four million euros.
Movie set
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The stretch of motorway between Jüchen and Gustorf can be closed to public traffic without causing major traffic problems. For this reason and because of its proximity to the media locations in Cologne and Dusseldorf 540 A served until 2005, before moving the set to film motorway to Aldenhoven regularly as the location of the company action concept for the action sequences in the RTL -Krimiserie Alarm for Cobra 11 - The highway police . For this purpose it was closed to regular traffic for an hour. Due to the fact that the Frimmersdorf and Neurath power plants are clearly visible from the autobahn, the scenes filmed on this section can be easily recognized in the series.
storm
During a severe storm on Whit Monday, June 9, 2014 , many trees were uprooted and tipped over onto the Rommerskirchen carriageway, so that the motorway from AS Gustorf to the end of Grevenbroich-Süd in the direction of Rommerskirchen had to be closed until June 12, 2014. The storm damage could be eliminated by the closure.
No traffic jam
Since the through traffic between Cologne and Mönchengladbach as well as the region west of the Lower Rhine is mainly handled by the federal highways 61 and 57, the A 540 now mainly serves only local traffic as a bypass of Grevenbroich. As a directional, four-lane route, the autobahn is oversized for its actual traffic load (maximum 16,000 vehicles / h between Jüchen and Gustorf). As a result, between January 2012 and May 2017, not a single traffic jam formed on this motorway - the only one in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Downgrading to the federal highway
At the beginning of 2020, the autobahn was downgraded to a federal highway and will be integrated into the route of federal highway 59 . The reason for this are projects for an intermunicipal industrial park in the cities of Jüchen and Grevenbroich. The typical blue motorway signs will only be dismantled in summer 2020, where speed signs will also be set up.
Web links
- Detailed route description of the federal motorway 540
- Highway 540 . State Office for Road Construction North Rhine-Westphalia. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
- A 540 Jüchen - Rommerskirchen on eautobahn.de
- A 540 cars flew through the air on Arbeitsgemeinschaft Autobahngeschichte (AGAB) e. V.
Individual evidence
- ^ The Autobahn 540 in North Rhine-Westphalia . State Office for Road Construction North Rhine-Westphalia. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
- ↑ a b Autobahn 540 . State Office for Road Construction North Rhine-Westphalia. Retrieved on August 17, 2014: “The A540 was originally intended to connect the A46 near Jüchen with the A1 near Cologne-Bocklemünd and thus as a replacement for the B59. What has remained of this is a section of the motorway between Jüchen (connection to the A46) to Grevenbroich-Süd, which essentially serves as a bypass for Grevenbroich. The section between Jüchen and Grevenbroich-Gustorf was completely demolished for a few years in 1991 in order to enable lignite mining. After the dismantling was finished, the section was rebuilt by the open pit operator and put back into operation in 1997. "
- ↑ Description of the route AS Jüchen - B 59 in Grevenbroich-Gustorf . Arbeitsgemeinschaft Autobahngeschichte (AGAB) eV. Retrieved May 1, 2018.
- ^ Filmautobahn and Aldenhoven Testing Center (ATC) . Aldenhoven municipality. Archived from the original on April 13, 2014. Retrieved on June 12, 2014: “For the company Action Concept GmbH, based in Hürth near Cologne, a 2.3 km long section of motorway was built for stunt and action shots. The elaborately prepared handling course offers a total of 4 km of driving distance. It is Europe's largest film set for high-speed motorway scenes and is rented out through FTL Film + Test Location GmbH. "
- ↑ Storm damage on the motorways: A540 and A43 remain closed . State Office for Road Construction North Rhine-Westphalia. June 10, 2014. Accessed on June 12, 2014: “Due to the ongoing clean-up work, the A43 near Recklinghausen in the direction of Wuppertal will probably remain closed until Wednesday morning (June 11th). The A540 near Grevenbroich in the direction of Cologne will even be closed until Thursday. Several trees were overturned by the storm, and it is also necessary to check which trees are no longer stable. "
- ↑ Traffic volume map 2015 (PDF) VM NRW. Retrieved May 1, 2018.
- ↑ The only motorway in North Rhine-Westphalia without traffic jams . Rhenish port. Retrieved May 1, 2018.
- ↑ Wiljo Piel: The A540 in Grevenbroich is downgraded: Adieu highway, Bonjour highway. Retrieved February 11, 2020 .
