Federal motorway 555
| Federal motorway 555 in Germany | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Operator: |
 Federal Republic of Germany
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| Start of the street: | Distribution circle Cologne ( 50 ° 54 ′ N , 6 ° 58 ′ E ) |
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| End of street: |
Bonn center ( 50 ° 45 ′ N , 7 ° 5 ′ E ) |
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| Overall length: | 20 km | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Development condition: | six-lane | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Course of the road
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Map with all coordinates: The federal autobahn 555 (abbreviation: BAB 555 ) - short form: Autobahn 555 (abbreviation: A 555 ) - is the oldest German autobahn. It connects the cities of Cologne and Bonn , which is why it is also called the Cologne-Bonn motorway .
history
Construction of the oldest German motorway began in October 1928 and was inaugurated on August 6, 1932 by the mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer . That is why it was not Adolf Hitler , as the later Nazi propaganda reported , but Adenauer who had the first motorway built. Formally, it was known as "Kraftwagenstrasse" and was called "Landstrasse 185" as the southern extension of Bonner Strasse in Cologne. A “Police Ordinance on the Use and Expansion of the Motor Vehicle Road Cologne – Bonn” of August 2, 1932, which came into force specifically for this purpose, stipulated that the road, which was originally a four-lane and intersection-free, 12 meter wide and 18.5 kilometer long road was only open to traffic Should be reserved for motor vehicles. It also stipulated that turning, stopping and parking were prohibited on this street.
The project was initiated by Adenauer, who after completing the work on the Cologne green belt was looking for a follow-up project to create jobs in the Cologne area. Responsible was the provincial administration of the Rhine province in Düsseldorf under the governor Johannes Horion from Sinnersdorf near Cologne. When the project was advertised, it was expressly stated that excavators and other large equipment are not permitted. A total of 5540 emergency workers were placed by the local employment offices for this emergency work. There were also grants from the Reich government in Berlin.
It is the first German motorway to be opened under this name , while the intersection-free road with separate lanes and two lanes in each direction in Berlin's Grunewald , which was planned about twenty years earlier and opened about eleven years earlier, was referred to as an automobile traffic and training street .
In 1932, the road was the busiest road in the German Reich, with a daily traffic volume of around 3,000 vehicles. The construction costs were around 8.6 million Reichsmarks and, as a job creation measure in the " Voluntary Labor Service ", helped many previously unemployed people to find work and bread since autumn 1931.
Six months after it was opened, Kraftwagenstrasse was downgraded to Landstrasse by the now ruling National Socialists in order to claim the title of builder of the first autobahn. Until then, the federal highway 9 ran on this route.
Formally, the "intersection-free motor vehicle road" (so the official name) was a country road until April 1, 1958 ; only then was it upgraded to a federal motorway . The classification as a country road goes back to the National Socialists. In this context it should be mentioned that the National Socialists claimed that highways were “unique in the world” and “a man's will made concrete”. Hombach and Telgenbüscher point out, however, that since 1924 the first pure motor road has connected Milan with the northern Italian lakes. Both also write with regard to the Reichsautobahn in general and the Reichsautobahn Cologne – Bonn in particular: "In order to still be able to sell the expressways as an idea of their own, the National Socialists unceremoniously downgrade the 18-kilometer route between Bonn and Cologne as a country road."
Until its expansion to three strips in each direction between 1964 and 1966 ( planning approval decision of April 6, 1964), it had no structural separation of the directional lanes (with the exception described below). The two lanes were only separated by a wide, color-highlighted central strip. There is a large roundabout at the beginning and end. The road was designed for speeds of up to 120 km / h, which at that time only very few motor vehicles could achieve. For the inauguration by Konrad Adenauer on August 6, 1932, the ADAC organized a rally to the Cologne distribution group. Those who wanted to take part in the opening trip had to pay five Reichsmarks (around € 22 adjusted for inflation today). 2,000 drivers took part. Normal traffic was only allowed from August 8th. The route was well received. In the first year after opening, around 4,000 vehicles drove on the road every day. Today there is an average of around 80,500 vehicles on working days.
Until the mid-1940s, the A555 ran parallel to the old Reichsstrasse 9 (Cologne-Bonner Landstrasse, later Bundesstrasse 9) all the way. When the Cologne-South motorway junction was built in the early 1940s, the old route of the country road was no longer possible there. You didn't want to do without them either. It was therefore laid for around 2.5 km, starting from the Cologne distributor, between the directional lanes of the A555. This resulted in a unique motorway structure consisting of three separate lanes south of the distributor in the green belt: One lane for all vehicles, wagons and pedestrians from and to Godorf, which was connected to today's L186 by a tunnel at the current Rodenkirchen exit and to the side of it One each for motorized traffic to the south and one from the south. Motorists who only wanted to go to Hahnwald also made use of this special strip in the middle. Until 1964 there was only one exit / entry point in distant Wesseling. With the expansion of the A555 in the mid-1960s, the embedded country road was closed and partially removed.
Two times, in 1948 and 1949, parts of the A555 and A4 were the venue for the Cologne course car and motorcycle race , which is held today under this historical name as part of a classic car event on the Nürburgring. In the races in 1948 and 1949, the country road lane at the level of the motorway junction was used for grandstands.
Until 1974 the autobahn was called "A 72". Since in June 1974 the systematic numbering of all motorways was changed to one, two and three-digit numbers for nationwide, state-wide and regional connections and even numbers for east-west and odd numbers for north-south routes, the Cologne-Bonn motorway was given with "A 555" an odd three-digit number.
The road was used several times for test purposes: In the 1930s, different types of lamps were installed to test different models with regard to the glare effect for motorists. In the 1990s, a field test was carried out on the A 555 to automatically collect motorway user charges ( tolls ).
Until the end of November 2009, the route was illuminated on a six-kilometer section between Godorf and Wesseling. After the 600 lights, which were attached to 170 masts, had to be replaced due to reasons of age, the system was initially switched off as a trial, then finally switched off, and finally dismantled in January 2014.
The refinery site of the former Rheinische Olefinwerke , today a Lyondellbasell plant, is located on both sides of the road .
Present shape
The A 555 runs between the Cologne distribution circle (coll .: Bonn distributor or south distributor) and Bonn distributor circle (coll .: Cologne distributor, north distributor or also Bonn distributor; officially: Potsdamer Platz). In Cologne it leads past the places Rondorf , Hahnwald and Godorf and then via Wesseling and Bornheim to Bonn. Today it is connected to the motorway network via the Cologne South and Bonn North motorway junctions. Its course is relatively flat and very straight compared to other motorways in the region. That tempts you to drive fast. The only notable curve at Wesseling has a significant bank . Until 2004, apart from braking funnels at the ends, it had no speed limit. Since then, the ability to drive fast has been significantly restricted by a noise-related speed limit at Bonn-Tannenbusch / Buschdorf and at Wesseling.
Originally, in the 1960s, it was to be run as the Cologne city motorway to Neustadt, in order to be connected to a section of the A 57 that is now designated as Kreisstraße 4 .
Between Wesseling and Bornheim, in the area of the Eichkamp forest, there is a former service station called Im Eichkamp . Today there is a traffic safety center of TÜV Rheinland on the site . The directional lane Bonn is still connected to the site today. In the opposite direction, however, a continuous guardrail was installed. Field tests for the truck toll were also partially carried out on the service area.
In 2003 the new junction Bornheim (Rhineland) was built and released in order to relieve the road network in the west of Bonn (in particular the through-roads of Duisdorf , Lessenich / Meßdorf and Dransdorf ) in connection with several bypasses and to connect the foothills near Bornheim and Alfter to the motorway .
Since the end of 2007, a new field test with the next generation of toll collection systems has been taking place on the old toll test track. The superstructures are significantly smaller, but the image capture has become larger.
On average, it is used by 71,000 vehicles every day, on working days the average is 80,500.
"Diplomatic Racetrack"
In the Cologne area, the A 555 is still known today as the diplomatic racetrack: Since there were no speed limits on the A 555 during the Bonn Republic , government officials who lived in Cologne could get to work at high speeds in what was then the federal capital of Bonn. In addition, foreign diplomats and state visitors are said to have driven their limousines to Cologne and back at top speed during their stays in the then capital Bonn . The development of this nickname was favored by the high engine power of the government vehicles and the low proportion of trucks on the city connection.
In Bonn, the term diplomatic racetrack is also used for the B 9 , which connected the former government district with the city center on the one hand and the diplomatic town of Bad Godesberg on the other.
Art on the Autobahn
On September 12th and 13th, 2008, the artist Lutz Fritsch installed a red steel stele at each end of the autobahn to bring Bonn and Cologne into an artistic dialogue.
The stele at the Cologne distribution circle was erected on September 12th, the stele at Potsdamer Platz in Bonn on September 13th, 2008. They are each 50 meters high, weigh 48 tons and have a diameter of 90 centimeters.
literature
- Ulrich S. Soénius: Only road and diplomatic racecourse - On the history of the A 555. In: Lutz Fritsch (Ed.): Location center. Vision and Reality, Nuremberg 2009, pp. 13–17 [in Engl .: Car-only Road and Diplomats' Racetrack - The History of the A 555, pp. 100–103]
- Ulrich S. Soénius : 80 years of the "Autobahn" from Cologne to Bonn. In: Kölnische Rundschau. August 2, 2012, accessed January 12, 2014 .
Web links
- Detailed route description of the federal motorway 555
- Richard Heister: A555 Europe's first motorway. One day - contemporary stories on Spiegel Online. In: Spiegel Online. August 4, 2007, accessed January 12, 2014 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Richard Heister: A 555 Europe's first motorway turns 75. In: Spiegel Online. August 4, 2007, accessed January 12, 2014 .
- ^ A b Karl Gutzmer et al .: Chronicle of the City of Bonn . Ed .: Bodo Harenberg. Chronik-Verlag, Dortmund 1988, ISBN 3-611-00032-9 , p. 176 .
- ↑ a b Marion Hombach and Joachim Telgenbüscher: Das Märchen von der Autobahn, p. 85. (No longer available online.) In: GEO EPOCHE No. 57 - 10/12 - Germany under the swastika - Part 1 . September 27, 2012, archived from the original on November 9, 2012 ; Retrieved January 23, 2013 .
- ↑ Searching for traces in Cologne: A ghost train between the tracks of the A555. November 8, 2015, accessed August 4, 2020 .
- ↑ Entry on the “Kölner Kurs” motorsport racetrack on the A 555 motorway in the “ KuLaDig ” database of the Rhineland Regional Council
- ↑ Searching for traces: When the Köln-Süd motorway junction became a race track. July 8, 2016, accessed March 30, 2018 .
- ↑ a b "Diplomatic Racecourse" turns 75 (no longer available online.) Landesbetrieb Straßenbau Nordrhein-Westfalen, archived from the original on January 19, 2015 ; accessed on January 12, 2014 .
- ↑ The lighting is removed from the A555. 150,000 euros in energy costs per year. In: koeln.de. July 21, 2010, accessed January 12, 2014 .
- ↑ A555: Bottlenecks between Godorf and Kreuz Bonn-Nord. State Office for Road Construction North Rhine-Westphalia, January 17, 2014, accessed on January 19, 2014 .
- ^ Autobahn 555. A service from Straßen.NRW. State Office for Road Construction North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on January 12, 2014 (as of 2011).
- ↑ Driving animals was strictly forbidden. In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. July 31, 2007, accessed November 24, 2017 .
- ^ Lars-Broder Keil: 75 years of the Autobahn - a legend made of concrete. In: Die Welt - online edition. August 6, 2007, accessed January 12, 2014 .
- ^ Sylvia Schmitz: From the region - more way than goal. On the federal highway 9 from appointment to appointment. In: General-Anzeiger (Bonn). December 31, 1999, archived from the original ; accessed on January 12, 2014 .
- ↑ City tour Hochkreuz. In: www.godesberg.de - Active in Bad Godesberg. Thomas von Pfetten-Arnbach, archived from the original ; Retrieved January 12, 2014 (private website).
- ^ Eveline Kracht: Cities in Artistic Dialogue. Red steel steles by Lutz Fritsch is a project for the Regionale 2010. In: Kölnische Rundschau. August 7, 2008, accessed April 24, 2017 .
- ↑ Christoph Meurer: It shines red between Bonn and Cologne. The "Location Center" project by the artist Lutz Fritsch now connects both cities. In: General-Anzeiger (Bonn). September 15, 2008, accessed September 7, 2017 .
