Eifel motorway

Eifel motorway
Basic data
Operator:	Federal Republic of Germany
Overall length:	95.9 km
State :	North Rhine-Westphalia Rhineland-Palatinate
Development condition:	four-lane

In road construction, the Eifelautobahn is the section of the Federal Motorway 1 between the Cologne-West junction and the Vulkaneifel triangle . There is still a gap of around 24 km (as the crow flies) between the interchanges Blankenheim ( North Rhine-Westphalia ) and Kelberg ( Rhineland-Palatinate ). As a result, a large part of the traffic flows via federal highway 51 .

There is no evidence of the first use of the term commonly used today in specialist circles for the A1 in the Eifel region. In common parlance, the name Eifelautobahn was not only used for the A1, but also for the formerly completed federal motorway 48 , partly also for the Eifel sections of the A60 and A61 and for the A553 .

Emergence

The Eifel motorway was built in 1970, initially with the construction of the A 61 , which runs between the Erfttal motorway junction and the Bliesheim motorway junction together with the A 1. By 1982 the northern part of the Eifel motorway to Blankenheim was completed. The southernmost part between the Vulkaneifel and Daun motorway triangle was not opened until 15 years later . The existing gap, for which an urgent need was determined in the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan in 2003 , has since been closed from the south. The Eifel motorway was created in the following sections:

Year¹	section	length
1970	Erfttal - Bliesheim (as part of the A 61)	5.7 km
1971	Cologne-West - Frechen	0.9 km
1972	Frechen - Erfttal	13.1 km
1977	Bliesheim - Euskirchen-Wißkirchen	15.9 km
1981	Euskirchen-Wißkirchen - Bad Münstereifel / Mechernich	8.6 km
1982	Bad Münstereifel / Mechernich - Blankenheim	13.2 km
1997	Daun - Vulkaneifel	2.8 km
2005	Rengen (provisional AS, now dismantled) - Daun	2.5 km
2010/11	Gerolstein - down	6.1 km
2012	Kelberg - Gerolstein	2.4 km

¹ year of opening to traffic

Course as a European route

The Eifel motorway also runs as the E 31 between the Cologne-West and Bliesheim junction and as the E 29 from the Bliesheim junction to the end of the motorway at Blankenheim .

Gap closure

End of the motorway near Blankenheim, Sept. 2007

Future plans

The existing gap between the current ends of the autobahn at Blankenheim and Kelberg , not far from the Vulkaneifel triangle , is largely still in the planning stage. Closing the gap will cost around 400 million euros. The aim was to obtain a building permit for the remaining route sections by 2010 and to close the gap completely by 2015.

However, since the planning approval decisions had to be changed several times since 2005, this date could no longer be kept. The missing sections were classified in the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030 under the top level of urgent need with planning rights . It is currently hoped that the gap will be closed by 2034 at the latest . Of the gap, which is around 25 km long, around 15 km are the responsibility of North Rhine-Westphalia, the remaining 10 km are to be realized by Rhineland-Palatinate. The section between Blankenheim and Lommersdorf has been in the planning approval procedure since May 2012 , and the draft planning for the section to Adenau was updated in June 2018.

In Rhineland-Palatinate in particular, there were occasional disagreements between the coalition partners of the state government regarding further construction, but in March 2013 the section from Adenau to Kelberg was registered for the 2015 Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan. In August 2014, the Federal Ministry of Transport approved the preliminary draft. In order to obtain building permits, the planning approval documents were published in summer 2018.

While many residents and business representatives welcome the gap, nature conservation associations have announced legal resistance. For years, planning has repeatedly stalled due to environmental law, in particular due to the Habitats and Birds Directive.

Completed measures

Liesertal Bridge under construction (July 2006)

A section of the third construction phase between Daun and Rengen was released on December 6, 2005. Since August 23, 2005, the approx. 3.5 km long section from Rengen to Gerolstein with a connection to the B 410n, which is also still partly to be completed, was under construction. This section was opened to traffic on October 1, 2010 without an opening ceremony, due to the dismantling of the Rengen temporary exit in the area of ​​the Liesertal Bridge initially only two lanes. The costs were estimated at around 50 million euros, of which around 18.5 million went to the 578 m long Liesertal Bridge and around 3.5 million to the Jeichensuhr Viaduct. Around one million cubic meters of earth had to be moved and 63,000 square meters of road surface built for the expansion.

Construction of the last section of the third construction phase to Kelberg began on February 25, 2008 at the Königsuhr viaduct. The 120 m long viaduct between the Gerolstein and Kelberg junctions is expected to cost 4.5 million euros, while the total cost of the 2.6 km long section should be around 35 million euros. The official traffic opening for this section took place on May 31, 2012.

Landscapes / regions

On its course through the north-western low mountain range of the Rhenish Slate Mountains , the Eifel motorway crosses the landscapes of Ville , Jülich-Zülpicher Börde , Kalkeifel and Vulkaneifel .

See also

Portal: Streets  - Overview of Wikipedia content on streets

Web links

• Citizens' initiative “Against the expansion of the A 1 e. V. “ from the web archive
• Information on closing the gap from the Rhineland-Palatinate Mobility Office

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Traffic clearances at autobahn online
2. ↑ Development of the German motorway network
3. ↑ A1 at Autobahnatlas Online
4. ↑ Press release of the Ministry of Economics, Transport, Agriculture and Viticulture, Rhineland-Palatinate  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated November 6, 2006  
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Press release from the Ministry of Economics, Transport, Agriculture and Viticulture, Rhineland-Palatinate  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated August 23, 2005  
6. ↑ Closing the gap on the A1 in the Eifel is making progress. Transport Minister Hendrik Wüst: “The blockades have been resolved.” | Streets.NRW. Retrieved July 29, 2018 . 
7. ↑ Homepage of the State Office for Road Construction NRW
8. ↑ Further construction of the A1 is getting closer to Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger from August 15, 2014
9. ↑ A1 Closing the gap: News. Retrieved July 29, 2018 . 
10. ^ A1 expansion of the Kölnische Rundschau from March 21, 2013
11. ↑ Press release from the Ministry of Economics, Transport, Agriculture and Viticulture, Rhineland-Palatinate  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated October 6, 2004  
12. ↑ Press release of the Ministry of the Interior, for Sport and Infrastructure of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate from May 31, 2012