Passage bans on the A8 and A93 in force from August 15

The coming weekend will be another hot one. Because the summer vacations end this week in Lower Saxony, Bremen, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Saarland and continue in Bavaria until the first week of September, the highways in Bavaria will once again be very busy. Experience has shown that traffic will be heaviest on the A8 and the A93 through the Inn Valley, leading onto the A8 from the border crossings with Austria. To prevent travelers from leaving the freeway when traffic is at a standstill or even at a standstill, and to prevent the villages most affected by the traffic from suffocating in traffic chaos, they may now impose new driving bans from Friday, August 15, which is the Assumption Day holiday in Bavaria. If necessary, they are also authorized to do so on other days.

Affected on the A8 are the exits

• Bad Aibling
• Rosenheim-West
• Rosenheim
• Rohrdorf
• Achenmühle
• Frasdorf
• Bernau a. Chiemsee
• Felden

The A93 can then be exited at

• Reischenhart
• Brannenburg

only if you can specify a regional destination. This applies in both directions. The ADAC points out that ignoring the sign 250 (prohibition for motor vehicles of all kinds) with additional sign “for evasive traffic in case of traffic jam on the highway” can be punished with a fine of 50 euros (for cars).

Change of heart at the Ministry of Transport

With the backing of the Federal Ministry of Transport, the Rosenheim District Office, which is responsible for numerous municipalities impacted, has allowed them to close eight local roads to through traffic on all public holidays, Saturdays, and Sundays until further notice.

This is new. Until CSU member Ulrich Lange spoke to the Ministry of Transport, the ministry repeatedly said that a ban on through roads based on the Austrian model was not legally possible. Although this is still the case, a solution has now been found in the form of a closure by the municipalities. Only the federal government, in the form of its highway company, is still allowed to block exits from the highway. However, the company is now providing official assistance in the form of signs and LED boards to convince drivers on the highway that it is pointless to take an exit to a bypass because of the municipal actions. Even before that, bypassers were standing in the villages instead of on the highway, or at least had no time advantage. The disadvantages for the overrun municipalities, however, were serious.

Whether there could be similar solutions for other similarly congested regions will be evaluated at the end of September with the involvement of Austrian representatives. The controversial issue of new lanes to improve the affected sections will certainly be discussed again. The ADAC, for example, favors this. However, there is no consensus on this in the region, and the federal funds for the expansion would first have to be released.

(fpi)