Random roadworks rantings – or how I learned to hate the German Autobahn

Markus Hoff-Holtmanns/ April 20, 2017/ Germany

Ever go to Germany? Ride the world famous “Autobahn”? Ride free, ride fast and all that? Yeah, free riding my ass. The German motorways are a mess. Granted there are areas where you can still go 300 for miles and miles, but they are rare and between. Usually at daytime traffic forbids this extravaganza in any case, but even at nighttime you better watch your tracks, because the next construction site is looming right around the corner. And such beauties they are.

You see, we Germans are a very orderly, clean and organized people. Things have to be “Korrekt!”. No hand-waiving when it comes to “der Deutschen liebstes Kind”, German’s most beloved child, the Autobahn.

Step 1: Make sure everyone is 100% safe

or in other words, make sure everyone in the whole country knows exactly that there will be some really serious roadworks coming this way. Of course it is important that the construction workers are safe and protected from the stupid drivers in Germany who are always going way too fast. But still, what German construction companies do is going way beyond that. They add all the bells and whistles to the street work to realize Step 1. This includes, but is not exclusive to:

1. Announce the coming work way ahead: They always put up a nice big sign long before any work starts telling people about how much their traffic will be disrupted exactly where and for how long (estimated, refer to the last point)
2. Narrowing the lanes: at least one lane MUST be 2 meters in width. Usually they are slightly less and I am sure the construction workers have bets going how many side mirrors they find each morning they come to work
3. Speaking of which, workers usually don’t show their face during rush hour: Probably night shifts make the workers much safer, but every second commuter having to suffer the roadwork will swear at the top of their lungs about the stupid lazy guys that block their precious piece of asphalt but never actually repair anything anyways…
4. Put lots of pylons everywhere: Orange is the new grey. Best if drivers don’t even see the actual road anymore, let alone where they have to drive. The “lost pylon” bet enters the same pot as the side mirrors for sure
5. Confuse the hell out of the car drivers with signs: The more confusing they are, the better. Take special care to add road splits, chicanes, 60 kph zones alternating with 80s, emergency stop areas on both sides, etc.
6. Do random excavation work during very dry weather: Nothing makes people happier than a little dust on the windscreen
7. Never finish on time: People will thank you even more when you get it FINALLY done

Step 2: Take all the time you need.

It falls together with the last point above. Time does not matter if you operate on a German motorway. It simply does not. Germans think in totally different dimensions than other countries it seems. Since I’ve been living in Klaukkala, Finland, the road surface of the main motorway leading towards Helsinki has been renewed on both sides at least three times already. On a stretch of about 10 kilometers.

Let’s digress a bit here. Finns are allowed to ride with Spikes on their tires during winter. I do as well. And that is fun I can tell you. Ripping the ice in our driveway is one of my favorite pastimes. Naturally this is rather unhealthy for the roads, not only the ice. So renewal frequency is higher here than elsewhere.

Back to the topic at hand. Said motorway gets fixed within a total of roughly 12 days. They split it in about 8 strips of 5 kilometers each. Each strip gets fixed in one night. A huge colon of work machines rip out 2-5 centimeters of bad asphalt at the front, cure the open wound in between, fill in the new material and finally straighten it with a roller. Then when both lanes are done and settled for a while, lane markings are done during one additional night. 8 nights for the new surface, 4 nights for lane markings. Bear with me here.

A couple of weeks ago in Germany when getting my new motorcycle I passed a road sign for a motorway construction site on the A7, one of the north-south “arteries” of traffic over there.
The work seemed to have started already as it looked like they had succeeded with points 1 through 5 of Step 1, but I didn’t see a living soul doing any work yet. Now hold on to your pants, since what comes now will literally (or figuratively, you chose) blow your mind. The sign said:

“[Blah, blah, blah] road surface renewal [blah, blah] on a stretch of 9,9 kilometers [blah, blah] done by August 2019 [blah, blah]”

Yes ma’am, you heard that one right. I was blasting into it at an obliterating 80 kph, so I couldn’t take a picture, but rest assured, my jaw dropped as far as it goes. It is mid April 2017 and here I was thinking that planning a trip to Scotland as far out as 2018 was crazy. Seems I underestimated the long-term surety of the German “Autobahnmeisterei” or whoever is responsible for this level of insanity.

As a disclaimer, the road surface in question was concrete, not asphalt, but still. Two years? Seriously?

Step 3: Do it right! Really, really right!

Well, what do you expect? It’s Germany. I have heard of cases where they used the wrong asphalt or concrete for roadworks and had to rip it up again because it was not according to regulations. It is not about making the road drive-able for vehicles, it is about making it Right!

So they first remove the road surface. All of it. Down to the sand foundations. And then some.

Then they let it settle. Because, you know, the ground has to settle. Often it was the case that I rode the highway with a gaping 15 centimeter or more depth right beside my wheels. Or left. Anyway. The rot goes deep, so make sure you get it all out.

Then they fill up the foundation. Sand, gravel, the works. Then, you guessed right, let it settle again. Flatten it out, let it settle, rinse and repeat for a couple of times. You have a deadline to miss, right?

Then, finally, put on the new road surface. You might guess this will be the last step? Noooo, far from it. There are at least to layers of asphalt that go onto the roads. One base layer and then the final one. Which is usually also adjusted to the specific context of road it goes to. Silent asphalt, asphalt for especially frequent truck traffic, fast asphalt, light asphalt, dark asphalt, tasty asphalt, heat absorbing asphalt, I have no idea. They seem to change all the time.

Oh, and then road markings, they take a long time as well, obviously. Before the actual construction work started there was already lots of work done adding temporary lane markings for all the pylons, narrow lanes and sign and direction confusion I explained above. Those yellow/orange markings have to be removed again before the final, white markings can be added to the road surface.

During my drive through the German roadworks culture I actually encountered the process of this removal. I was in one of those boring, kilometers long empty stretches of cordoned off road that looked to be in perfectly good condition. Only pylons and yellow road markings gave any indication of the purpose of the traffic congestion, 60 kph speed limit and general annoyance.

Then finally, when I didn’t dare hope anymore this weirdness would ever end, there was this one lonely guy doing the same as this poor dude.

 

I kid you not! I saw this with my own eyes! More than 6 kilometers of road markings and those guys remove them by hand. One guy was actually on his knees scraping yellow leftovers with a spatula(!) off the road! I mean, we send people into space and have self driving cars, but we need to use hand-tools to remove plastic from a road surface? Seriously?

When these markings are removed the next step is to add the white markings. Usually this also takes a couple of weeks, because they first keep one side of the road closed off, put down the withe lanes, let it settle, you already expected as much, right? Then change the positioning of the pylons and close off the other side of the road, apply the lane markings, etc., you get the idea. The amount of hassle for a three lane highway is considerable.

Only after all of the above is done will the road be made accessible again. After more than two years for 10km of highway. *Sigh*

To put all of this into perspective, Germany has on average at any given time nearly 1000km of roadworks on motorways! That’s why sitting in a traffic jam is part of the German way of life.

As a final anecdote and icing on the cake I also ran into an actual carpet on the motorway. Well, I didn’t run into it, but rather around, but still. Someone probably misses his rug right now.

Yes, Germany has one of the best developed road infrastructure in the world with more than 13000 km, the fourth longest after China, US and Spain. And in density per m^2 probably number one. But maintaining that is no easy task. And if they keep on doing it the same traditional way, their backlog will just continue to increase. Of course I can’t be sure, but I expect the days of free and fast riding in Germany are nearing their end. And the much criticized Maut is only the beginning.