Ebniterstrasse
The Ebniterstraße is about 10 km long mountain road , the town of Dornbirn in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg with belonging to Dornbirn mountain village Ebnit connects. The road leads through the Ebniterach valley from Gütle ( ⊙ ) to the Ebniter village center and was completed in 1927.
The geography of the narrow valley of the Ebniterach is decisive for the fact that the route of the Ebniterstraße is extremely winding and has numerous bridges, galleries and tunnels.
history
At the beginning of the 20th century, the small Walser settlement Ebnit, located at an altitude of about 1000 m above sea level. A. on a sloping open space in the valley of the Ebniterach, an independent political municipality. However, this could only be reached via the Fluhereck from Hohenems or very dangerous and difficult via the Spatenbachweg and the Hohen Gang . The community was threatened with depopulation, as numerous Ebnites were dependent on jobs in the Rhine Valley . For this reason, the Ebnit pastor Josef Meusburger, who had taken over the pastoral care of the small community in August 1911 and was intensely committed to the development of modern infrastructure in the remote mountain village, called for help to the state of Vorarlberg immediately after the First World War . From 1920, therefore, the planning of a road connection from Dornbirn through the valley of the Ebniterach began.
Since the extremely difficult and therefore expensive construction work would have far exceeded the financial strength of the small community, the state of Vorarlberg and the Federal Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Austria also contributed to the construction costs. In turn, the city of Dornbirn provided the Ebnit community's share of the construction costs as an advance. In turn, Dornbirn's participation in the construction work aimed in particular at facilitating the management of the community forests in the vicinity of the Ebniterach.
The extensive and exhausting construction work on the new road layout from the junction of the button path , just above the Rappenloch Gorge , began under the most difficult conditions in 1921. The terrain in particular made the engineers and construction workers difficult to create, as there were numerous bridges, galleries, supporting structures, slope erosions and tunnels had to be built in order to be able to build a road deep in the valley of the Ebniterach. When the building was finally completed in 1927, in the same year there was a serious fire accident in the center of Ebnit, which destroyed the church, the school and the rectory, among other things. This situation led the community of Ebnit into such severe financial distress that they could finally no longer bear their debts themselves and in 1932 it was incorporated into the city of Dornbirn. The last temporary bridges were finally completed in 1936, so that the now completely finished road was officially opened on September 6, 1936 under Mayor Ludwig Rinderer . On this occasion, Rinderer stated the total costs for the construction of Ebniterstrasse at 631,000 Schillings . However, due to the currency exchange from the krone to the shilling in 1925, the inflationary conversion rate on which the mayor used the calculation is not known and the total amount is therefore questionable.
Buildings
For the only 9.05 km long Ebniterstraße 115 retaining walls with a total area of 8,500 m², 14 bridges with a total area of 900 m², 10 tunnels or galleries with a total length of approx. 550 running meters , 32 culverts / brook crossings with a total length of c. 400 running meters, 13 rockfall protection and rock protection with a total length of approx. 450 running meters as well as 59 control systems with a total length of approx. 2,700 running meters were erected. The asphalted area is (2016) around 55,000 m².
Bridge structures
On May 10, 2011, the Rappenloch Bridge, newly built in 1955, a bridge structure that crossed the Rappenloch Gorge at its narrowest and steepest point at a height of around 70 m, collapsed due to a sudden rock fall. A steel truss makeshift bridge of the armed forces , which was placed on the abutment of the collapsed vault bridge, which was also anchored in the rock, finally replaced the old stone bridge structure. On February 29, 2012, the connection was interrupted for several days due to a rock fall on a bridge on Ebniterstraße. It was initially planned that the provisional Rappenlochbrücke would be replaced by a new building.
On the night of March 18-19, 2020, 10,000 m³ of rock erupted from the wall directly under a support of the temporary bridge. The bridge initially remained standing due to the anchorages that had been installed deep into the rock after the collapse of the stone bridge, but it was no longer passable and was dismantled on March 26, 2020 with the help of two large truck-mounted cranes. The main connecting road to Ebnit now leads down to the Staufensee shortly before the former Rappenlochbrücke, with a bridge over a narrow part of the lake and then on the other side of the valley back up to the original road layout.
Overall, the mountain road is a traffic structure that requires constant intensive maintenance and regular investment. It is particularly damaged and blocked by rockfalls or mudslides when the snow is melting. The rock fall in March 2020 happened after a significant warming with spring-like temperatures set in three days earlier.
After the construction of the Schanerloch Bridge and the Schaufelschlucht Bridge (since 2005), the Kohlhalden Bridge was also rebuilt or rebuilt in 2016 (design: Marte.Marte Architekten , Feldkirch). Overall, a general renovation of the entire Ebniterstraße is planned in the next few years. As a result of the renewed rock fall in March 2020, the previous plans for the development of the Ebnit by road were in need of major revision.
Public transport
Since December 6, 1948 there has been a regular bus connection on Ebniterstraße between Dornbirn and Ebnit as part of public transport. For a long time it was vehicles of the Austrian state post bus that ensured the connection from Dornbirn via Gütle and Ebniterstraße to Ebnit. Line 47 of the Landbus Unterland normally runs every hour with a journey time of 38 minutes between Dornbirn train station and Ebnit-Heumöser.
literature
- Walter Wohlgenannt: The Ebniter Village Book . Dornbirn 2003.
- Franz Kalb: From the mule tracks to Ebniterstraße. In: Stadtarchiv Dornbirn (Ed.): 650 years of the Walser settlement Ebnit. (= Dornbirn writings. Volume 28). Dornbirn 2001, ISBN 3-901900-09-8 .
- Werner Hagen, Eugen Peter: The road to Ebnit. In: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Ebnit (Ed.): Ebnit. (= Dornbirner Schriften. Special Issue No. 1). Dornbirn 1992, DNB 947319654 .
Web links
- Ingrid Böhler: Ebniter Straße in the Dornbirn Lexicon of the Dornbirn City Archives .
- Albert Bohle: Ebniterstraße in the Dornbirn Lexicon of the Dornbirn City Archives.
Individual evidence
- ^ Franz Kalb: From the mule tracks to Ebniterstraße. 2001, pp. 117-118.
- ^ Franz Kalb: From the mule tracks to Ebniterstraße. 2001, p. 124.
- ↑ Dornbirner Gemeindeblatt . June 24, 2016, p. 10.
- ↑ a b vorarlberg ORF at red: Rappenloch temporary bridge is being dismantled. March 26, 2020, accessed March 26, 2020 .
- ↑ Rappenloch Bridge collapsed near Ebnit . Article on derStandard.at from May 10, 2011.
- ↑ Rockslide tore the bridge on Dornbirner Bergstrasse with it . Article on derStandard.at from February 29, 2012.
- ^ Rappenloch in Dornbirn: start renovation work . Article on vol.at of September 8, 2019.
- ↑ a b Dornbirn: Large rock fall in the Rappenloch Gorge. Retrieved March 19, 2020 .
- ↑ a b vorarlberg ORF at red: Another rock fall in the Rappenloch Gorge. March 19, 2020, accessed March 19, 2020 .
- ↑ Rappenlochbrücke is history. In: Vorarlberger Nachrichten (VN.at). March 26, 2020, accessed June 28, 2020 .
- ↑ Josef Hagen: The winding Ebniterstraße costs a lot of money . In: Vorarlberger Nachrichten . 19th December 2014.
- ↑ TAWES history graphics - ZAMG. Retrieved March 19, 2020 .
- ↑ Dornbirner Gemeindeblatt. June 24, 2016, p. 9.
- ↑ Toni Schäfer: The Dornbirn - Gütle - Ebnit post bus line. In: Stadtarchiv Dornbirn (Ed.): 650 years of the Walser settlement Ebnit. (= Dornbirn writings. Volume 28). Dornbirn 2001, ISBN 3-901900-09-8 .