This Thursday, the summer exit barriers from the Tauern autobahn will come into effect again in the Austrian state of Salzburg. Until September, cars passing through are not allowed to switch to the country roads from Thursday to Sunday, even in traffic jams, so that they do not clog up the towns there. Tirol will next resort to the controversial means of block handling on Monday, as it did a total of 38 times this year. Trucks are then only allowed to enter the country on the Inntal autobahn one at a time so that traffic does not come to a standstill in Tyrol.
Because the trucks then often back up far into Bavaria and often back to the A 8 near Rosenheim and instead many drivers seek their salvation on the way through the villages, Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) has now via Twitter and in the Munich Mercury for its part requested that exits along the A 93 and the A 8 be closed to truck transit traffic. For this he reaps approval from the Bavarian Inn Valley – and from the Tyrolean Governor Günther Platter (ÖVP).
“Bayern’s patience is coming to an end,” Söder tweeted on Wednesday. “With every block handling through Tyrol, countless trucks drive through towns in the Inn Valley and in Upper Bavaria. We need measures to protect the local population.” In the Inn Valley, patience has long since been used up. The traffic load is “overwhelming”, says Neubeuern’s Mayor Christoph Schneider.
Trucks would try to cross the border through Neubeuern. Since this is mostly blocked for trucks, they come back again. The result: traffic chaos, late school buses, nursing and rescue services stuck in traffic. Neubeuern and the neighboring community of Nußdorf have therefore commissioned an expert opinion that recommends blocking trucks over 7.5 tons. “I believe that this result has at least contributed to the fact that the blocking has now become a top priority,” says Schneider, who also agrees with his Nußdorf colleague Susanne Grandauer. “I’m very happy that Söder reacted,” says Grandauer, while emphasizing that such bans only treat symptoms and not the causes. In the medium term, traffic must move away from road and towards rail.
Matthias Bernhardt, mayor in Oberaudorf, can also gain something from Söder’s proposal as long as there is no amicable solution with the Austrian side. For his Brannenburg colleague Matthias Jokisch, the Söder advance is even “without alternative”. What is moving through Brannenburg can no longer be called traffic. “Traffic is flowing, but everything is in place here.” The mayor of the border town of Kiefersfelden, Hajo Gruber, also shows a certain understanding for the Austrians, who overshot the target with the block handling. “Traffic has to go by rail, everything else is crazy.”
How the locks will work is still unclear
This is exactly what Tyrol’s governor Platter is constantly demanding. Because for a long time he missed the necessary commitment on the German side, for example for the construction of new tracks to the Brenner base tunnel, he openly uses block handling as a means of political pressure. He interpreted Söder’s request on Wednesday as a confirmation of the Tyrolean anti-transit policy. “Transit traffic along the Brenner corridor does not originate in Tyrol or Bavaria. Rather, we are the victims of a failed European transport policy that strongly favors road transport and has triggered a transit avalanche in recent years.” At the same time, Platter praises the fact that, after long resistance from the state government and a number of CSU transport ministers, Söder is now also demanding that truck transit via the Brenner Pass be made more expensive.
It was unclear on Wednesday how exactly the new blocks should work – except that they should only apply to trucks in transit. The Rosenheim district office seemed surprised by Söder’s tweet. There have been talks, but nothing more is known about the implementation. District Administrator Otto Lederer (CSU), who considers a reaction to the block handling to be “inevitable”, would prefer the federal government to block the exits on the relevant days. “Plan B would be that we make our own regulations for the state and district roads.” The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior asked the government of Upper Bavaria on Wednesday to develop a concept with the district office and the municipalities as to how the relevant exits for trucks over 7.5 tons could be blocked.