Potholes in Bonn and the region Money is only enough for patching up the roads

Bonn · Winter has left its mark on the roads in Bonn and the region. The city council is investing 1.5 million Euros in the transport network this year. Heavy traffic jams are expected in the Siebengebirge area.

Spring has sprung and the roadworks are now popping up like crocus. The region survived the winter well. “Not a lot has been destroyed,” says the director of the Bonn civil engineering office Peter Esch. But there has been a need for renovation work for years and this is getting worse due to a lack of money for investment. This means that the local communes have to deal with the deficiencies. Rhein-Sieg county will be starting to check the streets in May, whilst in Bonn checks are constantly carried out. The city even has a masterplan which is updated every month. However, drivers must be prepared for traffic jams and delays.

“The fact that the damage has not been too great is due to the temperatures”, explains Esch. The crucial factor is not how cold it has been but rather how often the ground froze and unfroze. This leads to water freezing in the tiny cracks in the roads and when the ice expands it literally cracks the road. The more often this occurs, the quicker the potholes are formed. “In traffic intensive areas, the asphalt can start to rupture within days.”

Weekly checks

When dangerous potholes suddenly appear, the road construction workers are called out at short notice, especially if cycle paths are affected. “When a car drives over a hole it is uncomfortable, but for a cyclist it could mean falling off,” says Esch. The main arterial roads like the B9 are therefore checked on a weekly basis; minor roads less often.

The basic rule of thumb is that the road works only begin when the cold periods are over. There are several things which complicate the issue. So complicated that Esch extends his answer. “For one thing, we have a supply problem,” he explains. In the winter, many asphalt plants are closed because they cannot manufacture the bitumen. The material must be kept constantly hot and it cannot be stored by the city construction companies. Consequently, it is more difficult for the communes to obtain surface material. And when they do, this is expensive – which leads to a highly critical point: “We do not have enough money for the roads”, Esch says.

The need for repairs is so advanced that he is only talking about retaining the current conditions and not about making improvements. “A road being merely traffic safe is nowhere near good enough”. The Bonn budget for the transport network has been reduced along with the budget for sport and social facilities. Esch has 1.5 million Euros at his disposal this year. Three times this amount is required. This money must be used to pay for lightening as well as the streets themselves. “Here we cannot make any savings, so the road repairs have to come second,” says Esch.

The State Office for Highways, responsible for planning, building and maintaining all highways, main roads and rural roads in North Rhine Westphalia is not in an enviable position. Whatever the Office does, it is not right. If potholes and damaged sections are repaired, the office is accused of simply patching up. But if thorough repair works are carried out, this is also not good, as it means diversions, traffic jams and delays for car drivers and other road users. This can be seen in Königswinter, where on the one hand we can be pleased that something is finally being done, but on the other hand, it seems that the area is surrounded by roadworks. The Office is involved in at least five projects, and the city council is also carrying out repair work in the following places:

A3: The biggest roadworks on the right-hand side of the river Rhine: repairs are being carried out on the section between Kreuz Heumar and the junction at Bad Honnef/Linz up to 2025. 40km of road and 45 bridges are being completely renewed.

L331: During and around the next summer break the L 331 between Königswinter-Altstadt and Ittenbach will be renewed – the main feeder road to Königswinter area and to the A 3. The 5.2km stretch is used daily by around 13,200 car drivers and in rush hour traffic queues build up. After years of improvements, the road surfaces need to be completely renewed, so there will be at least one-way closures. Details plans have not yet been finalised.

L143: will be renewed through Königswinter-Uthweiler. Even though this is a rural road under State Office jurisdiction, the city is taking responsibility due to staff shortages. Start of construction work is unknown.

B42: A partial renewal of the tunnel in Dollendorf is planned to start in the autumn. However, the required road works which no longer meet today’s safety standards are still on the Office’s to-do list, up to now they have not been worked on.

L490: A tunnel for toads is planned in the Königswinter area under the L 490 at Vinxel – here the second Berg-Tal route is affected. It is not clear if and when this will be done. We can only hope that the works will at least be decided upon soon, particularly because from autumn the Cäsariusstraße, one of the most important north-south axis, will be closed for canal construction.

Complex masterplan

It will take some time for the county roads to be checked for possible winter damage. In response to our enquiry, Anja Roth from the press office of the Rhine-Sieg County said that the checks will start in May: “by then the ground will have consolidated, this means that any possible frost damage has come to light”. Visual inspections of the entire road network are planned. Using a cut-off date of 1 January, this covers exactly 259,515km and reveals the need for renovation in many places. In order to record these, the county keeps a list of deficiencies which is permanently updated. The most recent version from August to September 2016 is nine pages long and shows that urgent repairs are needed to the K 4 in Königswinter, K 32 in Windeck, K 43 in Lohmar, K 35 in Much, K 53 in Meckenheim as well as on the K 65 in Rheinbach. In many other places, minor and major damage has been noted.

The masterplan for Bonn is more complicated. In total, there are around 300 projects to be coordinated with one another. This has an effect on the timing of the renovation work. “It would be ridiculous to build a new road when we need to dig it up a year later for canal work,” explains Peter Esch. For this reason, coordination discussions are regularly held with the public utilities and companies such as Telekom.

For Esch, one thing in particular has the highest priority: not letting the traffic come to a standstill. For example, the diversion routes must be kept clear when the Bad Godesberg tunnel is being renovated. Every effort is made, even for small improvements. Even going as far as putting extra ferries into operation during recent renovation work on the Nord bridge – although only a tiny fraction of the vehicles could use it. “To be honest, the traffic in Bonn is optimised out”, says Esch. This means: traffic jams cannot be avoided. For example, when the centipede bridge on the A 565 is renewed from 2020, or in the years to come, when the area around Bonn central station is renovated. “What remains for us to do is to keep road users informed by way of traffic congestion maps and recommended routes,” says Esch.

More information about roadworks in the region can be found here (in German): www.bonn.de/@baustellen (Orig. text: Nicolas Ottersbach, Laszlo Scheuch, Katrin Janßen)

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