The A45 Rahmede Viaduct in Lüdenscheid has been closed for a year now. Prime Minister Wüst speaks after an exchange with politics, business and residents of an impertinence. A citizens' initiative is disappointed.
Lüdenscheid (dpa / lnw) - One year after the momentous closure of the A45 Rahmede viaduct near Lüdenscheid, Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst sees an "imposition" on the region. "The very best thing for the residents and also for everyone else affected would be to get the new bridge ready very quickly," said the CDU politician after talks with those affected and business representatives on Monday. Although everyone involved is working flat out on a new building, it is taking "objectively far too long" within the framework of current planning law.
Accelerated planning is necessary, stressed Wüst in Lüdenscheid. Residents, commuters, care services and high-tech companies reported impressively about their considerable burdens. The region has been badly hit by noise, exhaust fumes and permanent traffic jams as a result of massive diversion traffic. However, the Sauerland town and the larger surrounding area are also confronted with delivery problems, slumps in sales and the emigration of workers.
The dilapidated Rahmede motorway bridge near Lüdenscheid has been closed for a year, and the north-south axis (Frankfurt-Dortmund), which is important throughout Germany, has been interrupted. Around 20,000 additional vehicles, including around 6,000 trucks, thunder through detour routes in Lüdenscheid every day.
Wüst criticized the fact that the federal government had not yet proposed any substantial legal changes to speed up the planning process for such large-scale projects. The MPK deputy chairman regretted that the important topic had therefore been removed from the agenda of the prime ministers' conference this Thursday.
Those affected demanded quick help from politicians, above all a ban on transit heavy goods traffic. The citizens' initiative A45-Lüdenscheid was disappointed after the conversation with Wüst. Spokesman Heiko Schürfeld told the German Press Agency that the head of government had only explained that there was now legal certainty that national truck traffic could be diverted. "That was too little and very unsatisfactory."
According to Schürfeld, representatives of a nursing service among the invited participants described that nursing staff were migrating. "Anyone who lives at the wrong end of Lüdenscheid will no longer be able to reach nursing services," he said. His citizens' initiative gave Wüst a list of demands. It requires a wide-ranging diversion concept. Some residents contacted a law firm. Time is of the essence - also because of the significantly increasing risk of accidents as a result of the onset of winter and snowfall.
Wüst pointed out that a ban on driving through had to be organized on site - in such a way that it really helped. The IHK in South Westphalia explained that the most important industrial region in North Rhine-Westphalia still needs deliveries and removals by truck. There is no solution to keeping traffic out of Lüdenscheid and then simply burdening the neighboring municipalities with it. The great concern is that an entire region will bleed dry, warned IHK chairman Ralf Stoffels.
According to previous planning, the new construction of the viaduct is estimated to take five years. Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) had appointed Lüdenscheid Mayor Sebastian Wagemeyer (SPD) as Ombudsman, who runs the bridge builder office. There, office manager Mario Bredow said that the city in the Märkisches Kreis with more than 70,000 inhabitants is now clinging to "every straw" after a year of extreme stress. For a long time - until a few days ago - the transport ministries of the federal and state governments of North Rhine-Westphalia took the view that a required ban on driving through was not possible at all.
Now the municipalities have to come to an agreement. A few days ago, a concept from the city of Lüdenscheid was initially rejected by the Märkischer Kreis in a switching conference with all the actors involved, Bredow reported. In another round, the district promised to check the plans. Wagemeyer recently criticized the fact that selfishness, partisanship, individual interests and tricks have often prevented everyone from pulling together. You have to work "hand in hand" and at high pressure on solutions - after a catastrophic year.
The Verkehrsclub NRW expressed incomprehension that for a year it was not possible to set a speed limit of 30 km/h on particularly busy sections of the route and that no solution could be found in the dispute over a ban on driving through.
