German Reunification Transport Projects

These projects are planned to positively impact regional development and infrastructure in the new federal states and across the inner German border.

Until the 1970s, East Germany (officially the German Democratic Republic or GDR) had not made any large-scale investment into its transport infrastructure.

Many of its motorways, roads, and railways had not been upgraded since the 1940s (with the exception of some that were repaired in the 1950s as needed) and were largely neglected: trunk roads, East Germany's long-distance counterparts to West Germany's Bundesstraßen, were still mostly unpaved in rural areas in 1990 and had numerous potholes.

Exceptions included the six-lane expansion of a short section of the southern segment of the Berlin ring road and the largest section of the A 24 from Hamburg to Berlin, at a cost of 1.2 billion East German mark (around 1.1 billion euro), which West Germany funded.

There was a lack of accelerating and decelerating ramps at interchanges, and there was also no continuous protective guardrail on long stretches.

Routes to West Germany had been brought up to better standards over the years, but had also been in the shadows for decades.

The railroads were the most important means of transport in the east - the Reichsbahn carried more goods on a network that was half as long as the West German Bundesbahn - but that did not save them from the effects of the historically poor East German economy.

Slowness was the norm - in fact, trains in the GDR often took more time to travel the same route in 1989 than they did in the 1930s.

With the fall of the wall and the opening of the borders in Europe, west–east traffic grew and added the then-dominant north–south transport corridors on a massive scale, especially in Germany and other countries on the former Iron Curtain.

The north–south direction (Rheinschiene and Hamburg – Stuttgart / Munich) still dominates in western Germany, but since 1989 the importance of the historical west–east axes and the north–south connection between Bavaria and Thuringia / Saxony has increased.

[3] Alongside the expansion of existing roads, it was also clear that the transport network between the East and the bordering states of Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, Hesse and Bavaria would need to be consolidated.

On December 1, 1993, the first of several investment measure laws followed, which were to replace plan approval procedures in sections of the VDE projects..

[10] There are 17 VDE projects, all either finished or under construction, numbered from north to south in ascending order.

On March 27, 1995, a new gas and steam combined cycle power plant started operation in Kirchmöser.

Critics claim that this endangers the Havel river landscape and the cultural heritage of Berlin and Potsdam.

The goal is to ensure a limited expansion to avoid collisions between groups of pusher boats.