Three months after the unexpected halt to construction in the Kramer Tunnel near Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the unilateral withdrawal of the tunnel builders, the Weilheim State Building Authority re-tendered the missing work. The aim is to resume construction work in Bavaria’s longest road tunnel “before the end of winter”, according to the authorities. A Tyrolean specialist construction company gave up the project in August after three and a half years because both sides could not agree on additional costs in the mid double-digit million range. Afterwards, both the company and the office terminated their contract concluded in 2019.
The previously calculated 150 million euros alone for the shell of the bypass tunnel around Garmisch towards Reutte and Fernpass will obviously be far from enough. In total, the major project was recently estimated at 365 million euros. It is unlikely that this sum will be maintained, nor will an opening at the end of 2025. The dispute over the additional costs that have already accrued and the further financial consequences of the work stoppage will probably have to be resolved in court.
By hastily putting the remaining work in the tunnel out to tender, the building authority says it also wants to ensure that “the absolutely necessary restoration of the previous mountain water conditions in the landslide area can be carried out promptly in order to be able to irrigate the slope spring moors naturally again”. This is due to a legal dispute between the Federal Nature Conservation Association and the Free State that has now been decided in the final instance because of the effects on the fauna and flora on the Kramer. Protected wet biotopes there dried out after groundwater escaped during the construction of the exploration tunnel and the groundwater level in the mountain range was then technically lowered with great effort. The Bavarian Administrative Court had already demanded a remediation concept for the resulting environmental damage a year ago.
The Free State tried to take action against the decision before the Federal Administrative Court, which has now been rejected. “A great success for nature conservation in Bavaria,” says BN state managing director Peter Rottner, commenting on the decision of the highest administrative judges. The chairman of the BN Garmisch-Partenkirchen district group, Axel Doering, emphasizes that the groundwater situation must be restored so that the slope spring moors receive water again. All of this could perhaps have been avoided years ago, but it was definitely possible with much less effort than at the current stage of construction work.