FREIBURG CITY TUNNEL
A reader writes about “Dreisamtal calls for fairness in tunnel construction” from May 2nd:
In the 1980s or early 1990s, the Freiburg municipal council approved the two tunnels of the B31-Ost with the stipulation and as a condition “that in direct temporal connection with the completion of the tunnels these will be continued in a westerly direction with the city tunnel”. At that time, the Dreisamtal also agreed to the new four-lane route through the Dreisamtal, which has been completed for 20 years – with the exception of the three-lane section Kirchzarten-Buchenbach. Should this become a motorway, the yellow road signs of the B31 in the Dreisamtal would only have to be recolored motorway blue.
Why does the Dreisamtal now demand fairness from road and tunnel planners? They’re just doing their job within the very narrow financial, technical and legal framework to complete what has long since been decided. At the time, the Green mayor of Freiburg, the Green member of the Bundestag Kerstin Andreae and the Green parliamentary group also agreed. The Falkensteig Tunnel was also included in the Federal Transport Route Plan. It is to be feared that this will not be built “in direct temporal connection” with the city tunnel, but – if ever – only decades later. And a look at Freiburg gives reason to fear that the city is only concerned with eliminating the bottleneck in the city center and that Falkensteig remains a desirable bottleneck in order to curb long-distance traffic on the B31. In that sense, I can understand the Council’s appeal.
What I miss is the view of current political events in Freiburg. Considerable sections of urban society want to move away from the city tunnel. The reason is the turnaround in traffic and the fight against CO2-Emissions. Should the political discourse turn in this direction, the Falkensteig tunnel would also become waste along with the city tunnel. Then there would be no hope that the situation would change. Then the only thing left would be to question the European main line through the Dreisamtal with a transit ban. The Council has probably not gotten that far yet.
Manfred Schreiber, Kirchzarten
#Letter #Editor #Theyre #job
