No sooner has the city council buried the eastern bypass of the railroad through the hauptsmoorwald than a new traffic policy spectre emerges: the six-lane expansion of the busy A 73 autobahn, already one of the most heavily traveled highways in upper franconia.
Commuters were given hope that such a mammoth project would enable them to travel to nurnberg without traffic jams in the future. But is such an expansion even politically desirable and financially feasible?? Could the hauptsmoorwald be further tattered for new traffic areas?
It is the chairman of the german traffic club in bamberg (VCD), dieter volk, who throws this scenario into the current debate about the muna/schiebplatz industrial park. Hort man volk, a declared opponent of the clearings, an additional industrial area will inevitably have to serve as an excuse for the six-lane expansion of the A 73 in this coarse. "The highway authority has the finished plans for the expansion in the drawer and is just waiting to be elevated to the top of the federal traffic route plan. An industrial area will be made into a strong lever", predicts the traffic expert.
A message that makes the growing number of opponents of the new industrial park sit up and take notice. The prospect of further burdens on the east of bamberg following a deportation camp and controversial commercial sites makes them even more determined to fight against the plans of a hitherto clear majority of the city council. "We do not want polarization. We assume that the city council will do everything possible to prevent damage to the population", declares the citizens' initiative "for the hauptsmoorwald". Despite this, it is launching its eponymous citizens' petition these days in order to stop the commercial park project after all.
Ulrike siebenhaar, spokeswoman for the city administration, sees a possible six-lane expansion of the A 73 near bamberg as a positive development for the business location of bamberg in the interest of thousands of commuters. But a link between the development plan procedure and such a rough project is absurd in terms of content and law.
In fact, the expansion of a federal highway requires a lengthy legislative process that culminates in a planning approval process lasting several years. Neither of these is currently in sight for the section of the A 73 near bamberg, germany. "When drawing up the 2030 federal traffic route plan, bavaria registered the most heavily congested sections from forchheim to the furth/erlangen interchange for six-lane widening, but the federal government did not include them", explains corinna korn of the state ministry for housing, construction and transport.
Korn puts the traffic load on the A 73 south of the bamberg interchange at around 57,000 vehicles a day. That's a lot, but it obviously hasn't yet reached the threshold at which the authorities need to take action. The northern bavaria freeway authority therefore currently sees "no significant deficits in the route cross-section between bamberg and forchheim".
Of course: the affected drivers themselves will judge this quite differently. ADAC nordbayern, for example, certifies that the A 73 near bamberg has an increased risk of traffic jams. A six-lane expansion is therefore clearly to be advocated. Three lanes in each direction could significantly improve the flow of traffic.
Despite the questionable scenario of a freeway widening, the majority in the city council seems to continue to broil for the business park in its current planned dimensions. On wednesday, the bamberger FDP declared its renunciation of the plans to clear the forest for the construction of a new traffic police station at the moosstrabe. Like the BA faction, martin pohner proposes an alternative site for the police building on the already sealed muna land. The main moorland forest as the green lung of bamberg must not be impaired in such a way. "The free state's plans are a "crazy idea", says Pohner.