Wiesbaden Cross

Wiesbaden Cross
map
location
Country:	Germany
State :	Hesse
Coordinates:	50 ° 3 '20 "  N , 8 ° 23' 16"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 3 '20 "  N , 8 ° 23' 16"  E
Height:	160  m above sea level NN
Basic data
Design type:	Classic shamrock
Bridges:	1 (motorway) / 4 (other)
Construction year:	1939
The A66 at Wiesbadener Kreuz in the direction of Frankfurt am Main

The Wiesbadener Kreuz is a motorway junction in Hesse , which is located in the Rhine-Main area . Here the A 3 ( Oberhausen - Frankfurt am Main - Passau ) and the A 66 ( Wiesbaden - Fulda ) intersect .

geography

The cross is located in the area of ​​the city of Hochheim , near the Hofheim district of Wallau . The surrounding cities and communities are Hofheim , Flörsheim and Wiesbaden. The cross is located about 20 km west of Frankfurt and about 10 km east of Wiesbaden. It is located on a ridge, which for the A 66 represents the apex between Wiesbaden and Frankfurt, while for the A 3 it is only a small first ramp in the Taunus foreland on the way over the Taunus heights.

The Wiesbadener Kreuz bears the number 47 on the A 3 and number 9 on the A 66.

history

The Wiesbadener Kreuz has had the status of motorway junction since 1965, when the federal highway 54 was upgraded to the motorway, today's A 66. However, this junction structure was already of particular importance for the construction history of the A 3. Before the war, the B 54 was in connection with the B 40 as a motor vehicle a relatively efficient express connection between Wiesbaden and Frankfurt. The connection of the planned Reichsautobahn from Cologne to the Frankfurter Kreuz on this street was the starting point for the construction work in the southern section to the north. The Wiesbadener Kreuz is one of the oldest structures on the A3 south of Cologne.

For the motorway bridge, the Reichsstraße was lowered and the level of the ridge was removed over a large area to create the individual connecting curves. The wanderer had to give way to the construction work on the crossing structure , a sandstone obelisk, which was rebuilt very close to the Reichsstraße. On September 23, 1939, the Wiesbadener Kreuz was opened to traffic as the Wiesbaden junction and was initially also known as the Wandersmann because of the monument . At this point in time, the section of the motorway from here to the Limburg- Nord junction was completed. When the last section to Cologne was completed on June 15, 1940, the entire long-distance traffic between the Cologne area including the Ruhr area and the Rhine-Main area rolled over this structure. Since the construction work on the last section up to the Frankfurter Kreuz had to be stopped due to the war, long-distance traffic was routed for years via Reichsstraßen 54 and 40 to the junction Frankfurt-Nord of the Reichsautobahn Hamburg-Frankfurt to bypass the gap .

After the war, construction work on the motorway to the south was resumed in June 1950. With the completion of the 3.5 km long section to Weilbach in 1951, the Wiesbaden junction could be addressed for the first time as a Wiesbaden cross with traffic flow in all four directions. From 1954, the motorway-like (four-lane) expansion of the B 54 to the Rhein-Main-Schnellweg began . From then on, there was no longer any significant structural difference between the Wiesbadener Kreuz and a motorway junction. With the opening of the Frankfurter Kreuz on July 10, 1956, the diversion of traffic flowing to and from the south via the B 54 and B 40 could be canceled, which was particularly important for the connection of Frankfurt Airport to long-distance traffic.

Planning

In April 2011, a plan approval procedure for the renovation of the Wiesbadener Kreuz began. As part of the redesign, a move away from the cloverleaf shape is planned. In order to cope with the increased volume of traffic caused by rush hour traffic between Wiesbaden and Frankfurt am Main, the two crossings from the A 3 to the A 66 for traffic from Cologne to Frankfurt and for traffic from Frankfurt Airport to Wiesbaden will be the same abandoned right-turning 270-degree shamrock loops. Instead, according to a variant developed by the Hessian Road and Transport Administration, two left-turning, semi-direct connecting arcs are bundled in the northeast of the cross and cross the main lanes. The connecting ramps of the routes between Wiesbaden and Würzburg and between Cologne and Frankfurt are to be run in two lanes. The planned variant is the best solution in terms of road safety, environmental compatibility and economy. The published site plan for the project seems to require a renewed implementation of the Wandersmann monument. A specific time frame for the start of the construction work is not yet known (as of April 2011).

State of development

The cross was built in the shape of a clover, similar to the Frankfurt Cross before its renovation. A3 and A66 each have 2 lanes and a single lane parallel lane in each direction. All ramps are single lane.

Traffic volume

After the Frankfurter Kreuz and Offenbacher Kreuz, the cross is the busiest road junction in Hesse with around 210,000 vehicles per day.

From	To	Average daily traffic volume			Share of heavy goods traffic
		2005	2010	2015	2005	2010	2015
AS Wiesbaden / Niedernhausen (A 3)	Wiesbaden Cross	094,500	096,800	104,500	13.3%	14.0%	13.3%
Wiesbaden Cross	AS Raunheim (A 3)	094,800	098,900	101,700	12.9%	13.6%	14.0%
AS Wallau (A 66)	Wiesbaden Cross	103,800	111,200	117,300	05.2%	06.0%	05.0%
Wiesbaden Cross	AS Diedenbergen (A 66)	069,600	073,200	098,800	05.7%	05.5%	05.0%

Web links

• Webcam at Wiesbadener Kreuz (hr-online.de)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ autobahnkreuze-online.de: Wiesbadener Kreuz ( Memento from March 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ 50 years of the Frankfurter Kreuz ( Memento from July 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file, 881 KB), Klaus-Peter Barth and Michael Antenbrink , Hessian State Office for Roads and Transport , Frankfurt with information on the Wiesbaden Cross on the pages 4 and 6
3. ^ Farewell to the clover leaf - Wiesbaden motorway junction is being renewed Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz, April 2, 2011
4. ↑ Manual road traffic census 2005. (PDF) Results on federal motorways. BASt Statistics, 2007, accessed on August 18, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Manual road traffic census 2010. (PDF) Results on federal motorways. BASt Statistics, 2011, accessed on August 18, 2018 . 
6. ↑ Manual road traffic census 2015. (PDF) Results on federal motorways. BASt Statistics, 2017, accessed on August 18, 2018 .