Less or more congestion

First traffic jam on the Danube Valley Bridge before its baptism of fire

The new Danube Valley Bridge is finished, on Monday it has to pass its baptism of fire

(Bild: Markus Wenzel)

Tens of motorists had been waiting for the new Danube Valley Bridge near Linz to be opened to traffic in the evening - and produced a first traffic jam. But it was not until Monday that more than 30,000 commuters put the construction to the test. However, it will be around ten years before the West Ring is finished.

"And we've already been stuck in the first traffic jam" - as early as Friday evening, drivers who had arrived at the new Danube Valley Bridge in Linz shortly after 6 p.m. reported. "All the license plates were there. People from Linz, Urfahr-Umgebung, Rohrbach, Grieskirchen, but also from Wels, Lower Austria and Vienna. Many of them wanted to be the first to drive over the new bridge" - a large police contingent regulated traffic over the 300-metre-long Danube crossing.

30,000 vehicles on the road every day
But the first baptism of fire is still to come: Monday. When around 25,000 cars travel on the B 127 to and from Linz on the Mühlviertel side of the Danube and just under 10,000 vehicles travel on the B 129 to or from Wilhering on the opposite side.

"Hopefully there won't be any more congestion than before," say commuters, as lanes have to be crossed when entering and leaving the new bridge and traffic lights regulate the flow of traffic.

What happens next
For the next few years, the bridge, which cost 305 million euros instead of the planned 240 million euros, will only have one lane of traffic in each direction. This is because the vehicles for driving the tunnel for the Westring on the Linz side need space. It will still take around seven years until the Freinberg tunnel, the station junction and the Waldeggstraße underground route are completed, by which time the A26 should be connected to the A7 in 2035.