West Highway

	Template: Infobox high-ranking street / Maintenance / AT-A
	A1 motorway in Austria
	West Highway
	map
	Basic data
Operator:
Start of the street:	Vienna ; ( 48 ° 12 ′ N , 16 ° 14 ′ E )
End of street:	Salzburg ; ( 47 ° 46 ′ N , 12 ° 57 ′ E )
Overall length:	292 km
State :	Vienna; Lower Austria; Upper Austria; Salzburg;
	A 1 at the St. Pölten junction
	State of Vienna
	Province of Lower Austria
	Province of Upper Austria
	State of Salzburg
	Under construction; In planning; Section Control ; Traffic control system ;

The West Autobahn A 1 is the first autobahn built in Austria . It leads from Vienna via Linz to the Walserberg near Salzburg , where it merges into the German federal motorway 8 at the Walserberg . With a total length of 292 km, it is the second longest Austrian motorway after the Süd Autobahn (A 2).

The first section built as part of the Reichsautobahn during the Second World War stretches from the German border to Salzburg-Mitte. The last construction phase is located in the Vienna Woods between Pressbaum and Vienna and was opened in 1966. On May 12, 1967, the gap between Amstetten-West and Amstetten-Ost was closed. (see below)

In connection with other expressways and motorways, the West Autobahn forms part of the so-called regional ring around Vienna.

Historical

Hitler at the groundbreaking ceremony on Walserberg

The important traffic relation between Salzburg and Vienna, which was covered for a long time by the Roman Reichsstraße south of the Limes, later as the Imperial and Royal Reichsstraße and from 1921 as a federal highway, was often based on local traffic needs and ran through many town centers, which is why a new concept was obvious . The groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the motorway was celebrated shortly after Austria was annexed to the German Reich on April 7, 1938 near Salzburg in the presence of Adolf Hitler . Technicians disguised as tourists had already explored the area in 1937, so that the large-scale route was already largely established when construction began. By the summer of 1938, 60 km of the planned 150 km long route were under construction. The first two sections of the Ostmark near Salzburg were opened on September 13th . Construction was delayed due to the labor shortage during the war. In 1942 the construction of the motorway was stopped with a total length of 16.8 kilometers completed. In post-war Austria, the American occupation zone thought of building the motorway. This was prevented by the Soviet occupiers, so that further construction was only possible after the state treaty of 1955 .

In the area between the Mondsee rest stop and St. Georgen im Attergau , a route variant was planned in the imperial planning, which should lead in an attractive landscape high above the Attersee west bank. When construction work resumed in the 1950s, the current, western route through the valley of the Wangauer Ache and the Ruetzingbach via the municipality of Oberwang was chosen for geological reasons . Concrete arches and culverts erected in 1941 as preparatory work and now functionless can be seen off the current route of the A1 on the Oberaschau municipal road on the municipal border between Oberwang and Innerschwand . An Asfinag information board at the ruins provides information on this historical background.

The expansion took place in partial sections, so that there were still vacant lots until completion. Until the 1960s, there was a vacant lot in Upper Austria between Lambach and Vöcklabruck and another via Strengberg on the border between Upper and Lower Austria. These were already finished when the last stretch between Pressbaum and the Viennese west entrance in Auhof was opened.

In 1966, in the course of the so-called building scandal under Building Minister Vinzenz Kotzina, price fixing , abuse of office and bribery of civil servants were uncovered. This happened as a result of the necessary closure of the motorway in February 1966 via Strengberg as a result of subsidence of the lane and poor construction.

expansion

The A1 near Eugendorf

Since the A1 is the most important west-east connection in the Austrian road network, Asfinag has continuously expanded sections to six lanes . The goal was a six-lane expansion between the Steinhäusl node and the Voralpenkreuz node . With the completion of the renovation and widening of the section from Matzleinsdorf (kilometer 85.9) to Pöchlarn (kilometer 91.0), this project was completed at the end of April 2018.

On October 7, 2005, the expanded section of the A1 between the Voralpenkreuz junction and the Haid junction was opened to traffic. The 20-kilometer section was expanded to six lanes plus a hard shoulder in just 23 months. This short construction period was only possible because in the first part of the expansion, when the Salzburg carriageway was expanded, traffic in the direction of Vienna between the Voralpenkreuz junction and the Haid junction via the Innkreis Autobahn A 8, the Wels junction and the Wels autobahn A. 25 was diverted. In the second expansion step, a diversion was no longer necessary and traffic was guided on the previously expanded carriageway. A middle division was also established. For the first time, the speed of a motorway construction site was not limited to 80 km / h , but to 100 km / h. This limitation was monitored by means of section controls. There were no serious accidents during the construction phase and the majority of road users complied with the restriction. The Traun Bridge at kilometer 216 was rebuilt between 2010 and October 2012. Between 2011 and 2012, the route between Amstetten-Ost and Ybbs was expanded to six lanes, and between 2013 and 2014 the Vienna lane between Ybbs and Pöchlarn was extended to three lanes.

Route approvals

Section no.	Release date	Route from ASt	to ASt	Length (km)	comment
1	75152292800 ♠ 1942	Salzburg North	Walserberg state border	12.533 km
2	75785793050 ♠Apr 26, 1958	Mondsee	Salzburg North	23.890 km
3	75807467875 ♠03 Dec 1958	Ennsdorf	Sattledt	43.233 km
4th	75807467875 ♠03 Dec 1958	St. Christophen	Pöchlarn	49.797 km
5	75875097050 ♠Aug 26, 1960	Sattledt	Vorchdorf	12.430 km
6th	75917981575 ♠0Oct 7, 1961	Vorchdorf	Regau	16.467 km
7th	75924772400 ♠Dec 16, 1961	Press tree	St. Christophen	18.019 km
8th	75924772400 ♠Dec 16, 1961	Pöchlarn	Amstetten-Ost	18.126 km
9	75984215375 ♠June 15, 1963	Regau	Sea whale	10.769 km	right lane
10	75988680575 ♠July 31, 1963	Sea whale	Strass	13,400 km	right lane
11	75989424775 ♠0Aug 7, 1963	Strass	Traschwand	02,500 km	right lane
12	75997145850 ♠Oct 26, 1963	Traschwand	Mondsee	14.195 km	right lane
13	76039844325 ♠0Dec 5, 1964	Traschwand	Mondsee	14.195 km	left lane
14th	76039844325 ♠0Dec 5, 1964	Sea whale	Strass	13,400 km	left lane
15th	76039844325 ♠0Dec 5, 1964	Strass	Traschwand	02,500 km	left lane
16	76039844325 ♠0Dec 5, 1964	Regau	Sea whale	10.769 km	left lane
17th	76079007850 ♠Dec 10, 1965	Amstetten-West	Ennsdorf	29.176 km
18th	76118822550 ♠Dec 22, 1966	Vienna-Auhof	Press tree	13.930 km
19th	76135753100 ♠May 12, 1967	Amstetten-Ost	Amstetten-West	13.494 km	last gap closed

Accidents

On August 21, 2000 at around 3 a.m., a serious bus accident occurred near Pöchlarn in the Melk district . In an oncoming traffic area, the trailer of a skidding truck slashed the upper deck of a German double-decker bus , killing eight young people and injuring 23 others, some seriously. The truck driver skidded in the narrow construction site area due to inattention. After the accident, criticism of oncoming traffic areas in motorway construction sites in Austria was loud. The truck driver was sentenced seven months later for negligent homicide in eight cases to a conditional prison sentence of six months as well as a ten-month driving license withdrawal.

Danger of fog

The approximately ten kilometer long stretch between Regau and Seewalchen in the Upper Austrian lake region is the most fog-prone stretch of the autobahn in Austria: Between 1997 and 2001 there were 103 traffic accidents with personal injury due to the rising fog banks in which visibility suddenly fell to almost zero. When there were four pile-ups in both directions of travel within this section due to fog on September 30, 2002, with eight dead and 57 injured, a fog warning system (the only one of its kind in Austria) was installed in this area , which has been in full operation since autumn 2004: The visibility along the motorway section is measured with special devices every 600 meters. As soon as a certain value is fallen below, a warning is automatically triggered and the Seewalchen motorway maintenance authority is alerted. There or at the tunnel control room in Wels , the employees enter the relevant warning into the computer, which then appears on the display boards on the A1. Even so, the total number of fog-related accidents has only decreased slightly to date.

Test routes with a speed limit of 140 km / h

From August 1, 2018, on two 120-kilometer sections - between Melk and Oed in Lower Austria and between Haid and Sattledt in Upper Austria - a maximum speed of 140 km / h for cars was applied as a test between 5 a.m. and 10 p.m. In July 2019, "partly very positive" results of the test operation were reported. The environmental pollution has not increased, and the increase in CO ₂ and nitrogen oxide is also a "marginal" one to two percent. The number of accidents has halved (Lower Austria: from an average of 4.6 per month to 2.2; Upper Austria: from 1.2 to 0.5 per month). However, Greenpeace contradicts the only slight increase in environmental pollution on the grounds that the report also included the pollution of the trucks, although this was not affected by the increase in speed. According to their calculations, the increase is 3.5 and 3.6 percent. The test project was ended on March 1, 2020 due to increased environmental pollution.

literature

30 years of ASFINAG anniversary font

Web links

Commons : West Autobahn A1 - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

The western motorway - a standard measurement

Individual evidence

↑ Information board of the Asfinag on the municipal road Oberaschau
↑ ASFINAG: General renewal of the A 1 between Auhof and Wolfsgraben completed ots.at, APA, August 26, 2010, last accessed April 6, 2017.
↑ Federal Chancellor Josef Klaus on the building scandal in the media library, November 23, 1966, accessed on May 14, 2015. - Sound document 00:42 min.
↑ A1: Third lane traffic opening Pöchlarn orf.at, April 26, 2018, accessed October 22, 2018.
↑ Third A1 lane released earlier than planned. Retrieved December 7, 2018 .
↑ Traunbrücke ( Memento from January 14, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
↑ A 1 Ybbs to Pöchlarn in the direction of Vienna - expansion completed ( memento of the original from 23 September 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Page not available, April 6, 2017. @1@ 2

↑ Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology: Statistics Road & Transport, January 2013 (PDF; 757 kB), p. 13

^ Wiener Zeitung Online: Bus accident: 8 young people killed. Retrieved December 12, 2018 .

↑ Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology and ASFINAG: Start of the Tempo 140 pilot project on the A1 West Autobahn on August 1, 2018. In: ots.at. Retrieved July 24, 2018 .

↑ Tempo 140: Test partly positive. In: diepresse.com. July 27, 2019, accessed July 29, 2019 .

↑ Tempo 140: Greenpeace contradicts ASFINAG on ORF of August 6, 2019, accessed on August 6, 2019

↑ Federal Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology and ASFINAG: Off for Tempo 140 test routes with effect from March 1st from 5:00 am. In: ots.at. Retrieved February 28, 2020 .

[1] Information board of the Asfinag on the municipal road Oberaschau

[2] ASFINAG: General renewal of the A 1 between Auhof and Wolfsgraben completed ots.at, APA, August 26, 2010, last accessed April 6, 2017.

[3] Federal Chancellor Josef Klaus on the building scandal in the media library, November 23, 1966, accessed on May 14, 2015. - Sound document 00:42 min.

[4] A1: Third lane traffic opening Pöchlarn orf.at, April 26, 2018, accessed October 22, 2018.

[5] Third A1 lane released earlier than planned. Retrieved December 7, 2018 .

[6] Traunbrücke ( Memento from January 14, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )

[7] A 1 Ybbs to Pöchlarn in the direction of Vienna - expansion completed ( memento of the original from 23 September 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Page not available, April 6, 2017. @1@ 2

[8] Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology: Statistics Road & Transport, January 2013 (PDF; 757 kB), p. 13

[9] Wiener Zeitung Online: Bus accident: 8 young people killed. Retrieved December 12, 2018 .

[10] Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology and ASFINAG: Start of the Tempo 140 pilot project on the A1 West Autobahn on August 1, 2018. In: ots.at. Retrieved July 24, 2018 .

[11] Tempo 140: Test partly positive. In: diepresse.com. July 27, 2019, accessed July 29, 2019 .

[12] Tempo 140: Greenpeace contradicts ASFINAG on ORF of August 6, 2019, accessed on August 6, 2019

[13] Federal Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology and ASFINAG: Off for Tempo 140 test routes with effect from March 1st from 5:00 am. In: ots.at. Retrieved February 28, 2020 .


Highways	A 1 West Motorway • A 2 South Motorway • A 3 Southeast Motorway • A 4 East Motorway • A 5 North / Weinviertel Motorway • A 6 Northeast Motorway • A 7 Mühlkreis Motorway • A 8 Innkreis Motorway • A 9 Pyhrn Motorway • A 10 Tauern Motorway • A 11 Karawanken motorway • A 12 Inntal motorway • A 13 Brenner motorway • A 14 Rheintal / Walgau motorway • A 21 Vienna outer ring motorway • A 22 Danube bank motorway • A 23 motorway Südosttangente Vienna • A 25 Wels motorway • A 26 Linz motorway
Expressways	S 1 Wiener Außenring Schnellstraße • S 2 Wiener Nordrand Schnellstraße • S 3 Weinviertel Schnellstraße • S 4 Mattersburger Schnellstraße • S 5 Stockerauer Schnellstraße • S 6 Semmering Schnellstraße • S 7 Fürstenfelder Schnellstraße • S 8 Marchfeld Schnellstraße • S 10 Mühlviertler Schnellstraße • S 16 Arlberg Expressway • S 18 Bodensee expressway • S 31 Burgenland expressway • S 33 Kremser expressway • S 34 Traisental expressway • S 35 Brucker expressway • S 36 Murtal expressway • S 37 Klagenfurt expressway