Hamburg landmark: What will become of the Köhlbrand Bridge?

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The Köhlbrand Bridge in the evening: a landmark of the city for decades

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Roy Jankowski / Westend61 / IMAGO

Along with the Michel, the town hall and the Elbphilharmonie, it is a landmark of Hamburg and is considered one of the most important traffic arteries in the port - the Köhlbrand Bridge, which is visible from afar. But the millions of trucks that passed the 135-meter-high structure for decades have left their mark - so deep that the bridge's days are numbered. So a solution has to be found. Hamburg's red-green Senate wants to decide on Tuesday what that could look like. An overview of the debate so far.

Which bridge is it about?

The Köhlbrand Bridge was opened almost 50 years ago, on September 23, 1974 - and was visited by around 600,000 Hamburg residents over three days. The cable-stayed bridge, designed by civil engineer Paul Boué and architect Egon Jux, spans the 325-meter-wide Köhlbrand - an arm of the Southern Elbe - not far from the A7 motorway junction Waltershof and ends on the Elbe island of Wilhelmsburg. The construction time for the 3,618 meter long bridge was four years and the costs amounted to around 160 million German marks (almost 82 million euros). Due to corrosion damage and broken wires, all steel cables had to be replaced in the 1970s, and a basic repair costing more than 60 million euros followed between 2014 and 2016. The bridge is a listed building and was featured on a special postage stamp issued by the Federal Post Office towards the end of the 1980s.

Why should a bridge that has just been completely renovated be replaced?

As early as 2012 - before the renovation work began - the then Mayor of Hamburg and current Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) declared that the bridge should be demolished and replaced by a new building. His then Senator for Economic Affairs, Frank Horch (independent), said that the bridge could only be operated safely and economically until 2030. In order to protect the structure, there has been a ban on overtaking trucks since 2012. At the beginning of 2019, the Hamburg Port Authority (HPA) also ordered a distance requirement of 50 meters for trucks. According to HPA information, around 38,000 vehicles now pass the bridge every day, around a third of which are trucks.

Bridge or tunnel?

The former mayor Scholz originally wanted to have a new bridge built. In 2017, the HPA began planning one for 2030. But then the idea of ​​a double-story tunnel arose, with trains or self-driving container transporters possibly even on the lower level. Economics Senator Horch said at the time that, at more than three billion euros, building a tunnel was significantly more expensive than building a bridge, but had several advantages. The maintenance costs are then lower and a tunnel lasts longer than a bridge. In addition, very large container ships could then reach the Altenwerder terminal behind the bridge. The economic authority, the port industry and the port administration were positively electrified by this variant. The tunnel was therefore considered established for years.

When did the rude awakening come?

In the middle of last year: Economics Senator Melanie Leonhard (SPD) had the costs for the tunnel construction recalculated and came to around 5.3 billion euros - it is now said to be even seven billion euros - and therefore spoke out again in favor of a bridge. According to her, it turned out that building a tunnel would be significantly more complicated and time-consuming than previously thought. According to a recently surfaced internal audit report from the economic authority, a bridge would cost between 4.5 and five billion euros, with around half a billion euros being added for the demolition of the Köhlbrand Bridge. The report also states: Instead of the most recently rumored completion date of 2036, it will now take ten years longer.

Who should pay for that?

That's where things get complicated. The only thing that is certain is that the city of Hamburg will not be able to manage the project alone. For this reason alone, Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) and the then Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) signed a declaration of intent to jointly renew the Köhlbrand crossing in 2020. To make this possible, the bridge was upgraded to a federal highway in 2021 and has since been subject to a toll for trucks. There is currently no specific funding level from the federal government; there was once talk of 50 percent. According to responses from the Federal Government and the Senate to small inquiries from the Union, there have now been almost 20 documented discussions between Hamburg and the federal government since 2019 regarding planning and financing. The Senate recently estimated the planning costs already incurred at almost 66 million euros.

Is the federal government involved?

That is completely unclear, because there is another problem: the A26 East motorway. According to a report from the Federal Ministry of Transport from July 2023, the connection between the A7 and the A1, planned just a few kilometers south of the Köhlbrand Bridge, will now cost around 2.28 billion euros instead of just under 900 million euros. Since the federal government is covering the costs for the almost ten kilometer long stretch of motorway, the deputy chairwoman of the Bundestag's budget committee, Bettina Hagedorn (SPD), said around a year ago: "Who believes that two such large projects can be implemented so close to each other , didn’t hear the shot.”

Are there alternatives?

A lot – depending on who you ask. It starts with the height of the bridge. Twelve years ago, Scholz wanted a replacement structure with a clearance height for ships of 73.5 meters - 20 meters more than the Köhlbrand Bridge offers. This should also allow those XXL container freighters that would previously get stuck under the bridge to pass through. However, critics say that this was planned without meeting the needs, that shipping companies are currently changing their fleet management and may no longer see the need to come to Hamburg with such large ships in the future. And even if they did, the enormous additional costs for taxpayers would be disproportionate to the profits - especially since the shipping companies did not contribute to the costs. From the point of view of these critics, a lower bridge would also do.

Can the bridge be preserved?

This variant is preferred by monument protection, the Hamburg Chamber of Architects and various other organizations. They have already started a petition and refer to studies that suggest the bridge could be renovated and continued to be used if it were freed from heavy goods traffic. Since this cannot simply disappear into thin air, this group quickly warmed to a suggestion from port expert and former president of the Port of Hamburg business association, Gunther Bonz. In January he revived the idea of ​​building a second bridge for heavy goods traffic south of the Köhlbrand Bridge. However, Hamburg's red-green Senate has so far rejected the idea of ​​preserving the bridge. For Economics Senator Leonhard, the Köhlbrand Bridge is a “technical-economic total loss” that can no longer be saved.

mak/dpa