Projects

Denmark – Germany bridge planned

By Iain MacIntyre

An agreement to build a 20 kilometre suspension bridge over the Baltic Sea’s Fehmarn Strait between Denmark and Germany was signed by officials from the two countries on September 3.

Due to commence construction by 2012 and be completed by 2018, the bridge’s design is understood to still remain largely undecided. However, it is expected to entail a four-lane highway and two-track railway connection between Rodby (on the Danish island of Lolland) and Puttgarden (on the German island of Fehmarn).

To be operated with tolls, the construction is expected to remove an hour from the current four-and-a-half hour road journey between Copenhagen and Hamburg and improve the rail connection between Berlin and Copenhagen. The project will close one of the last bridgeable gaps in the landmass occupied by the European Union and will also benefit Sweden.

Costs have been estimated at €5.6 billion of which the Danish Government has agreed to provide €4.8 billion. Germany, which was understood to have for many years taken a lukewarm stance to the development, has agreed to essentially meet the costs of highway and railway links to the bridge on Fehmarn and south towards Hamburg.

Having experienced an economic boom over the past 15 years, Denmark is reportedly unfazed by the large investment. It is expected the project costs, which will actually be borne by private investors and guaranteed by the Danish Government, will be recouped through tolls within a few decades.

This optimism has been aided by the success of two other major transport links recently completed in Denmark. Massive traffic flows have been reported across the bridge between the Danish islands of Zealand and Funen (opened in 1998) and over the Oresund Bridge (built two years later) between Malmo (Sweden) and Copenhagen.

However, despite the Danish Transport Ministry’s claims the bridge will lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions compared to the ferries currently transiting the Fehmarn Strait, German environmental group NABU has vowed to fight the development.

Claiming migrating birds will fly into the bridge’s towers and that the construction will adversely affect marine mammals such as porpoises and seals in the Fehmarn Strait, NABU has said it will, “obstruct the project in the courts any way we can”.

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