Hüttentalstrasse

Hüttentalstrasse
map
Basic data
Operator:	Federal Republic of Germany
Overall length:	approx. 30 km
State :	North Rhine-Westphalia
Development condition:	motorway-like

The Hüttentalstraße (B 54, B 62, also known as Hüttentalentlastungsstraße, in short: HTS ) is an urban motorway in the Siegen and Kreuztal conurbation in North Rhine-Westphalia . It was named after the former town of Hüttental or after the Hüttental, which ran with numerous ironworks between the south of Siegen and today's northern city area to Geisweid and Kreuztal-Buschhütten.

course

The route of the HTS begins at the Kreuztal-Krombach junction, on the " Krombacher Höhe ". The federal motorway 4 ends here and merges seamlessly into the HTS ( federal highway 54 ). The transition can only be perceived by the different colored signs, but this is due to the curves that are too tight for a motorway and the steep gradient down to Kreuztal. From this junction on, the Hüttentalstraße is led in the form of an elevated road as federal road 54 to the junction Hammerhütte (City-Galerie), then (initially together already from Siegen-Weidenau) further towards Siegen-Niederschelden as federal road 62 . It is erected in the area of ​​Siegen city center as a high bridge structure that characterizes the cityscape and is largely four-lane. On short sections of the route between the Geisweid and Weidenau connections, as well as between the city center and Hammerhütte, there are three lanes in each direction, the outer two of which, however, are designed as overlong acceleration and deceleration lanes for the junctions. There are also three lanes between the Eintracht and Rinsenau junctions in the direction of Niederschelden, of which the outer one is also designed as an over-long acceleration and deceleration lane for the junctions. The last section of the HTS in the Niederschelden area was opened to traffic on December 2, 2016, the Siegen-Eiserfeld exit as the last individual structure on May 11, 2017. If you count the section from Olpe-Süd to Krombach to the HTS, then you have it to the Niederschelderhütte (without junctions and branches) a total length of almost exactly 30 kilometers.

Building history

Planning and first sections

The first plans for the construction of a motorway-like road through Siegen were made in the 1960s, for example under the leadership of the then senior building officer Dr. Hans Gemünd. The first houses to build the HTS were demolished in July 1970 in Buschgotthardshütten . This was followed in November 1971 by houses on Austraße in Siegen.

The Eintrach ramp at the Siegerlandhalle including the route to the expanded Siegen motorway junction in the Rinsenau and in Weidenau the bridge over the Ruhr-Sieg railway line towards the old B 62 (so-called east ramp) were the first sections that began in 1974. The first section from the Siegerlandhalle to Rinsenau was opened to traffic on July 6, 1977.

Further construction of the route from Weidenau towards Siegen city center and Kreuztal

After the first structures were completed at the end of the 1970s, weidenau continued to build in the direction of the Sieghütte junction and in the opposite direction via the Geisweid junction to a provisional exit in front of Dillnhütten. In the mid-1980s, the route was then extended from the Sieghütte to behind the Siegen main station. It ended there on the busy Freudenberger Strasse, which at that time was still led over the horseshoe bridge and the station forecourt to Berliner Strasse and the “Kochs Ecke” intersection. In the direction of Kreuztal, construction was carried out in two sections from December 1985 with approval on October 31, 1989 to Buschhütten and approval on December 13, 1991 to the junction in Kreuztal.

Closing the gap in downtown Siegen

On November 27, 1998, the gap in the center of Siegen between the Siegen-Stadtmitte and Siegen-Eintracht junctions was opened to traffic. With this gap closing, the partial connection from the direction of Kreuztal to the City-Galerie car park was realized (AS Siegen-Hammerhütte). The construction work also included the construction of the Ziegenberg tunnel behind Siegen Central Station and the relocation of Freudenberger Straße. A first attempt to close the gap in the city center failed in the mid-1980s due to great resistance from the population. Among other things, there were squatting in the area of ​​the planned route.

Closing the gap between Kreuztal-Mitte and Olpe-Süd motorway junction

The completion of the gap closure A 4 / B 54 (HTS) between the motorway junction Olpe-Süd and Kreuztal-Mitte took place after more than four years of construction with the traffic opening on December 1, 2006. The "B 54 section" from Kreuztal- Middle to the junction Kreuztal-Krombach including the junction to the old B 54 will be unofficially released on June 23, 2006. The "A4 section" from Kreuztal-Krombach to the Olpe-Süd motorway junction was not yet fully completed at this point. Six kilometers of autobahn were built from Gerlingen in the east to Krombacher Höhe, and then nine kilometers of the main road to Kreuztal. The route leads over eight valley bridges . The construction site with a total financial volume of around 135 million euros was considered the largest contiguous road construction site in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2006.

Olpe-Süd motorway junction

When the Kreuztal-Olpe gap was opened to traffic, the signage in the cross was also adapted. From the direction of Dortmund, road users can now choose between the A 45 to Siegen and the A 4 new line to Siegen-Nord. The signposting has been completely changed from the direction of Cologne. Siegen is now shown as a goal on the A4 extension. Turning onto the A 45 is no longer necessary. With this measure, Straßen.NRW tries to divert traffic from the heavily used A 45 section Olpe-Siegen to the A 4 / HTS. At the beginning of 2005 efforts were made to rename the “Olpe-Süd” ( A 45 / A 4 ) interchange to “Siegen-Nord”. The reason given by the city of Siegen is that the Hüttentalstraße is the upper center of Siegen to the north directly connected to the motorway junction.

The Federal Transport Ministry has rejected a request to the city of Siegen on 1 February 2005, the matter has now fizzled.

Further construction of Siegen-Süd

Construction sign on the former HTS construction site in Niederschelden

The further construction as the B 62 in a southerly direction under the Siegtalbrücke with a subsequent branching to Siegen-Eiserfeld on the one hand and via the Bühl tunnel to Siegen-Niederschelden on the other hand to relieve the local through-traffic and further over the border to Niederschelderhütte in Rhineland-Palatinate to the B 62 there was official April 29, 2010 under construction (groundbreaking ceremony). The main route to Niederschelderhütte was provisionally opened to traffic on December 2, 2016. The Eiserfeld junction was not completed until the spring of 2017 as the last structure with a delay of almost two years. As part of a ceremony to complete the entire HTS, Federal Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt and his NRW state colleague Michael Groschek opened the road to traffic on May 11, 2017.

For the construction of the Bühl tunnel, the existing cavities in the Bühl ridge were filled in in spring / summer 2010. Subsequently, in October 2010, the first major construction work began in the area of ​​Siegtalstrasse in Niederschelden. The final roundabout, which connects the HTS at its new end with the existing old B 62 in Niederschelderhütte, was completed in May 2016. The work for the overbuilding of the Niederschelden Nord railway stop turned out to be particularly complex. Extensive agreements had to be made with DB Netz AG in advance (route closures and disconnection / reconstruction of the overhead line). In addition to the delayed completion of the Eiserfeld junction, the problem of finding dates for the line closures was the reason for the year-long delay in construction, which delayed the completion of the road to Niederschelderhütte and Eiserfeld by a year until autumn 2016. In March 2016, the final construction work began in the Alte Dreisbach. This included the dismantling of the previous provisional connection to the Dreisbachsiedlung as well as the construction of the carriageways from the end at that time to Eiserfeld and the renovation of the slope bridge built in the 1980s below the Siegtalbrücke. The relatively long overall construction time for the approximately three-kilometer-long section was, as with earlier gap closings by the HTS, due to the above-average number of engineering structures . Around 50 percent of the new line will run on bridges or in tunnels. Seven road bridges (987 m in total), a tunnel (525 m), ten retaining walls and a pedestrian overpass were built. The longest new bridge is the Hubenfeld bridge on the Eiserfeld junction with a length of 553 m.

Delays in the further construction of Siegen-Süd

A variant without a tunnel following the course of the river Sieg was judicially stopped on March 2, 1983. Since the construction had already started in part, some of the preliminary construction work , in particular the bridge piers that had already been started, could still be seen by pedestrians there until 2015 .

After the redefinition of the line in 1988 and an environmental impact study at the beginning of the 1990s, the plan for the Bühl tunnel was revised in 1995, which caused another year-long delay.

In 1999, the State Office for Road Construction NRW initiated the planning approval procedure in Siegen. After this was completed, the building application could be signed for the North Rhine-Westphalian side in early July 2009; the signature for the section in Rhineland-Palatinate followed two weeks later. As it became known on September 17, 2009, the Higher Administrative Court in Münster had received two lawsuits against the planning approval decision on time. However, one of the two plaintiffs had already withdrawn his objection in October 2009. The proponents of the extension tried to put pressure on the last plaintiff through media and public relations work as well as a demonstration on October 31, 2009 with the participation of leading politicians from the Siegen-Wittgenstein district and the Altenkirchen (Westerwald) district so that he would reconsider his complaint and withdraws if necessary. On March 2, 2010, the city of Siegen announced that the last lawsuit had also been withdrawn. Thanks to intensive discussions, it was possible to avoid a long-term legal dispute. Thus, the planning approval decision had been legally binding since March 4, 2010 and building permits existed for the first time since the early 1980s. One of the lawsuits was directed u. a. against the construction work and the associated construction noise; Economic considerations, such as the feared depreciation of the adjacent properties, also played a role. Another plaintiff preferred a route further south with a second tunnel in the Kleff area; However, due to the considerable additional costs involved, this variant was rejected in the earlier planning process. Previously, attempts had been made to prevent the route favored by the planning authorities for reasons of nature conservation law. Alleged occurrences of protected bats in the affected area could not be proven by independent sources to the extent claimed.

In order to avoid the impression that the mood in the village was against further construction, the above-mentioned supporters of the HTS had come together to form the citizens' initiative “Pro HTS” so that not only the opponents would get a hearing from the responsible authorities. The advocates promised considerable improvements for the through traffic jams affected by the traffic jam through the town of Niederschelden and Eiserfeld. This should relieve the residents affected within the framework of the statutory provisions and with regard to the available financial resources.

Due to the decades of delays, the provisional connection "Europaplatz" existed in the Dreisbachsiedlung from August 2, 1986 to July 20, 2016, which mainly served the car traffic through the Höllenwaldstraße to Niederschelden and in the Altenkirchen district and saved the detour via Eiserfeld.

According to the Federal Ministry of Transport, the construction of the Hüttentalstrasse without the extension to the Niederschelderhütte cost around 500 million euros. The further construction in the Siegen-Süd area should, according to the original information, cost another 81 million euros, but it ended up being 106 million euros.

tunnel

HTS at night in Siegen-Mitte before switching off the street lights

The Ziegenberg tunnel between the Siegen-Hammerhütte and Siegen-Eintracht junctions was built by Hochtief Construction Frankfurt between 1994 and 1998 , with construction starting on May 3, 1995. The breakthrough dates from February 6, 1996. It has two two-lane tubes, which are connected to a gallery structure at the eastern portal . The tunnel has a total length of 356 meters in the direction of SI-Rinsenau and 350 meters in the direction of Kreuztal. When slope movements and damage to the buildings above occurred during construction, after test blasting, blasting was briefly switched to milling. The tunnel grew initially with the North tube in top heading (some with subdivision in First tunnel and Restkalotte) and stopes - and Sohlvortrieb into the mountain. The south tube was then "opened".

The Wellersberg Tunnel was opened in 1997 and is almost 300 meters long. At the south portal it joins the Siegen-Mitte expressway junction. The entrance and exit of the HTS are located directly at the tunnel portal. At the northern tunnel portal there is a gallery structure , in front of which Freudenberger Straße branches off towards Wellersberg. The tunnel itself has three lanes, while the Freudenberger Straße leading out of the city in a westerly direction to the outskirts continues to be only two lanes.

The Bühl tunnel was approved in March 2010. Construction work on the tunnel began in October 2011. The breakthrough took place on December 6, 2012 and the shell was completed at the end of 2014. The technical systems (lighting, ventilation, fire alarm system and radio supply for mobile communications and radio) were installed by mid-2016. The tunnel consists of a tube with only two lanes, as the four lanes of the main route in front of the Bühl tunnel are divided at no height (two lanes from / to Eiserfeld and two lanes through the tunnel from / to Niederschelden). The 525 meter long Bühltunnel was prepared in three different constructions, starting from the low Schelder side with an open construction (46 m length), the cover construction (57 m length) and the mining construction (417 m length). The mining method was carried out using blasting. A tunnel boring machine was not used. The construction company was Züblin from Stuttgart.

The Siegberg Tunnel, which is to cross under Siegen's old town between the Hain residential area and the HTS junction Siegen-Mitte, has been in the planning stage for over 20 years. The planned length is around 1000 meters. The project was made binding in the Siegen-Mitte traffic development plan in 2002 by the city of Siegen, assessed by the state in the integrated overall traffic planning NRW 2005 with a cost-benefit factor of 1.45 and classified only as a municipal project. In the absence of funding from the state, planning is currently on hold.

Urban motorway network

There are a few short branches of the Hüttentalstraße, which are again developed like a motorway: They are designated as motorways with two lanes in each direction, are each structurally separated from each other and have hard shoulder lanes . The following junctions are part of the Siegen city motorway network:

Weidenau junction Basic data Operator: Federal Republic of Germany Overall length: 4 km State : North Rhine-Westphalia Development condition: motorway-like

Highway feeder junction Basic data Operator: Federal Republic of Germany Overall length: 2.5 km State : North Rhine-Westphalia Development condition: motorway-like

Freudenberger Strasse L 562 Basic data Operator: State of North Rhine-Westphalia Overall length: 8 kilometers State : North Rhine-Westphalia Development condition: motorway-like

Truck toll

The following parts of this section since 2012 seem out of date to be : If toll occurred, please rephrase
Please help with to the missing information research and insert .

On February 15, 2012, Federal Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer announced that the HTS from Kreuztal-Krombach to the Siegen-Rinsenau junction will be one of the seven federal highways in North Rhine-Westphalia from August 1, 2012, for which the truck toll will have to be paid in future. However, new toll bridges are not required as the route control is carried out by satellite. Until now, the toll only had to be paid on motorways.

Environmental and socio-political aspects

HTS route through Siegen-Sieghütte and Siegen-Weidenau

Hüttentalstrasse is the building with the greatest visual presence in Siegen. This is due to the topography , as the built-up area of ​​the city of Siegen essentially extends over a narrow strip along the valleys of Sieg and Ferndorf . As a result, 60 percent of the population of Siegen live less than 2 km from Hüttentalstrasse. The HTS is an elevated street on massive concrete stilts in the Siegen inner city area . Below it are other main roads, railway lines, cycle paths and numerous parking spaces. Not to be neglected is the noise from car traffic and from the freight trains that also run at night . This is amplified by the echo effect of the railway line running under the overpass . Long stretches of Sieg and Ferndorf had to be enclosed in a concrete bed, straightened and partially roofed over. The under monument protection standing timbered settlement Boschgotthardshütte in Siegen-Weidenau was demolished for the construction of Hüttentalstraße. As a result of the demolition of houses due to the construction of Hüttentalstrasse, there was a wave of squatting .

As a result of the construction of the HTS, the cycle path running under it from the city center to the university is largely covered.

Web links

Commons : Hüttentalstraße  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Information on the "HTS-Süd" construction project on strassen.nrw.de (accessed on May 6, 2011)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Siegerländer Heimatkalender 1973, pp. 18/28, published by Siegerländer Heimat- und Geschichtsverein e. V., publishing house for local literature.
2. ↑ Siegerländer Heimatkalender 1988, p. 18, publisher Siegerländer Heimat- und Geschichtsverein e. V., publishing house for local literature.
3. ↑ Siegerländer Heimatkalender 1987, p. 174, publisher Siegerländer Heimat- und Geschichtsverein e. V., publishing house for local literature.
4. ^ Siegerländer Heimatkalender 1991, p. 174, ed. Siegerländer Heimat- und Geschichtsverein e. V., publishing house for local literature.
5. ↑ Siegerländer Heimatkalender 1993, p. 176, publisher Siegerländer Heimat- und Geschichtsverein e. V., publishing house for local literature.
6. ↑ strassen.nrw.de: Invitation to the press conference: A 4 / B 54-Hüttentalstraße traffic release ( memento of the original from March 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . November 27, 2006. Retrieved January 29, 2008.  
7. ^ [1] Siegener Zeitung with details of the completion on September 28, 2016
8. ^ Raimund Hellwig, Boris Schopper: Last exit Niederschelden . In: Westfalenpost. January 11, 2008, Retrieved July 8, 2015.
9. ↑ Straßen.NRW to complete the entire Hüttentalstraße on May 3rd, 2017  ( 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.  
10. ↑ Siegerländer Heimatkalender 1996, p. 186, Ed. Siegerländer Heimat- und Geschichtsverein e. V., publishing house for local literature.
11. ^ "Scrolled back ...", Siegener Zeitung of March 5, 2011
12. ^ Info page from Straßen.NRW: [2]
13. ↑ ^{a b} Integrated overall traffic planning NRW: L 562 Siegen, Siegberg tunnel (PDF; 783 kB). Retrieved September 4, 2008.
14. ↑ Council information system of the city of Siegen: Template 1749/2002  ( 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. .  
15. ↑ Siegener Zeitung: Siegberg Tunnel just a »municipal problem«? Siegen department, issue of December 28, 2005.
16. ↑ The occupation scene woke Krönchenstadt . Siegener newspaper. Retrieved June 28, 2009.