Bundesstraße: Köhlbrandbrücke becomes a toll road for trucks

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The Köhlbrand Bridge will be upgraded to a federal road on Monday and will therefore be subject to tolls for trucks.

In this way, the legal prerequisites have been created for the federal government to participate in the costs of a new Köhlbrand crossing, as the economic authority announced on Friday.

The spectacular structure from 1974 is an important artery of the Port of Hamburg, but has to be replaced because it will no longer be able to meet the requirements from 2030 due to structural and capacity reasons.

There is already a ban on overtaking on the bridge and a distance requirement for trucks to reduce the load.

The red-green Senate has so far preferred a tunnel as a replacement.

"A total of 5.5 kilometers of road will be upgraded to the federal highway on February 1," said the Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics, Enak Ferlemann (CDU).

In addition to the bridge, this also applies to Finkenwerder Straße from the A7 exit Waltershof.

The construction load for the Köhlbrand crossing still lies with the city, "but the upgrade creates the legal prerequisite for possible funding of the new building by the federal government," said Ferlemann.

So far, a tunnel or a new bridge has cost between 2.5 and 3.2 billion euros.

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Senator for Economic Affairs Michael Westhagemann (independent) spoke of an important signal "that the federal government recognizes the overriding, national importance of this traffic route and can thus participate in the necessary renewal".

Transport Senator Anjes Tjarks (Greens) announced an examination "whether we can implement a rail-bound container transport option in addition to the lanes".

The same applies to a bicycle crossing over the Köhlbrand.

Last week, Westhagemann explained to the Hamburg citizens' economic committee that the new crossing is expected to be ready by 2034 - four years after the critical threshold at the old bridge has been reached.

The economic policy spokesman for the CDU citizenship parliamentary group, Götz Wiese, criticized: "The older the bridge gets, the higher the maintenance costs will be in the years to come." The maintenance costs are already 1.5 to two million euros per year .