As a parting gift?

Gewessler could finally shoot down the Lobau Tunnel

Gewessler has been campaigning against the Lobau Tunnel since the beginning of her term in office - now she could get her act together.

(Bild: APA/EVA MANHART)

Is the dispute over the Lobau Tunnel in Vienna entering a final round? The outgoing Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) could finally kill the project as a kind of farewell present. The tunnel is the worst solution, according to a 500-page report.

The report is the "Strategic Transport Review" (SP-V) on the Lobau Tunnel, which was initiated by Gewessler in 2022 and has been available since today, Wednesday. It recommends that the project be removed from the law, as the results of the study show that the "variant provided for in the Federal Roads Act is inferior to the alternatives in almost all aspects examined." Instead, public transport should be expanded, among other things.

Tunnel would lead to greater congestion
This proposal resulted from one of the three alternatives that were examined. An evaluation of the relevant section of the S1 between Schwechat and Süßenbrunn commissioned by the BMK and published three years ago already showed that the implementation of the road construction project and the tunnel would "cause additional traffic congestion and thus lead to negative effects on the environment, climate and spatial structures", according to the SP-V report.

Report: tunnel variant is the worst solution
Lukas Hammer, transport and environment spokesperson for the Greens, stated on the occasion of the publication that there was no way around the removal of the Lobauautobahn from the Federal Roads Act. It had also been clarified at a technical level "that we can better meet the mobility and climate policy challenges of the future than with this concrete project from the last century", said Hammer on the alternative proposal with the expansion of public transport and rail freight transport.

Most expensive solution with the most negative effects
The report, which was compiled by the Federal Environment Agency in cooperation with Graz University of Technology and Vienna University of Technology, contains more than 500 pages and examines the ecological impact of the planned Lobau highway and its alternatives.

It also shows "that the Lobau tunnel is not only the most expensive of the four options examined and has the greatest negative impact on the environment and the population, but is also the worst option from a mobility perspective", according to a statement by the mobility organization VCÖ.

WWF warns of a billion-dollar grave
Environmental protection organizations welcomed Gewessler's recommendation to cancel the project. "With the expansion of public transport, cheaper and better alternatives are obvious," said Johannes Wahlmüller, climate and energy spokesperson for Global 2000. The WWF also warns of a "billion-euro grave Lobau Tunnel" after this variant is expected to cost 2.4 billion euros according to SP-V.

"At the same time, the experts examining the project expect that the south-east bypass (A23) would only relieve traffic congestion to a small extent, but that traffic congestion would actually increase significantly, especially in the districts north of the Danube," the WWF continues. "Better alternatives are now on the table. The incoming government must take the situation seriously and remove the tunnel from the Federal Roads Act once and for all," Jasmin Duregger, climate and energy expert at Greenpeace in Austria, was quoted as saying.