Cologne Beltway

The Bundesautobahn 59 is tied to the beltway at the interchange Leverkusen-West in the north and to Dreieck Heumar in the south.

In 1941, the Rodenkirchener Autobahnbrücke was completed and the connection between the A 3 and the Autobahn to Bonn (today A 555) was established.

Almost all sections, with the exception of a short stretch on the A1 between Kreuz Köln-West and 1 km north of Köln-Lövenich (Expansion in progress there, estimated completion December 2013), have since been expanded to three lanes in each direction, but since more than 180,000 cars use at least part of the Autobahnring every day, traffic jams are a frequent occurrence.

The section between the interchanges Kreuz Köln-Ost and Dreieck Heumar was expanded to four lanes in each direction in 2005, a first for North Rhine-Westphalia.

It has recently been raised to 120 km/h northbound between Köln-Lövenich and Köln-Bocklemünd as well as between Kreuz Köln-Nord and Köln-Niehl.