This contribution was the Topic of the Week in the 2025 newsletter for Week 18.

On their way to coalition negotiations in Berlin, members of the working groups from the CDU and SPD experienced first-hand the urgency of the €500 billion special fund for infrastructure: the three-lane Ringbahn Bridge on the Berlin Ring Road, which sees almost 100,000 vehicles daily, was initially completely closed due to acute risk of collapse and later reopened only with restrictions. Since then, politicians have been stuck in traffic along with many commuters and lorry drivers.

The Ringbahn Bridge symbolises the dire state of infrastructure throughout Germany. Large sections of the motorway network, as well as rail and waterways, are in urgent need of renovation and must be expanded to accommodate increased traffic volumes. At the same time, new transmission networks and hydrogen pipelines need to be laid for the energy transition, mobile phone masts need to be erected, and broadband cables laid for digitalisation. The main reasons for the immense backlog in renovation and expansion are the often decades-long planning and approval processes.

Will there be a change of course?

One motorway bridge near Lüdenscheid on the Sauerland Line A45 also gained nationwide attention. The closure of the 453-metre-long Rahmede Valley Bridge in 2021 severed a lifeline for an entire region. Companies still have to resort to long detours, losing contracts, skilled workers and customers. The construction of a new bridge with additional lanes faced the threat of a lengthy planning approval procedure.

The local German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (IHKs) and companies in the region vigorously campaigned for an accelerated approval and construction process, with success: after further review, the approving authority decided in early 2023 that a formal planning approval procedure could be avoided. Even when awarding public contracts, time was the central criterion in the tender. Instead of the originally planned completion in five years, that is, by the end of 2026, the first section could now open in spring 2026. This would not only meet the target date, which is rare enough, but even beat it.

At the federal level, the Rahmede Valley Bridge served as a model for a traffic acceleration law. This grants so-called replacement new constructions with additional lanes extensive exemptions – both from lengthy planning approval procedures and from complex environmental impact assessments with public participation. In addition, requirements for public procurement were eased. With this rule, also known as "Lex Rahmede", bridge replacements should be implemented faster in the future.

Bureaucratic requirements slow things down

The reconstruction of the Rahmede Valley Bridge demonstrates that exempting certain projects from time-consuming procedural rules can accelerate infrastructure investments. Nevertheless, four and a half years for the reconstruction of such critical bridges like those in Lüdenscheid or Berlin is too long. The problem: even without a planning approval procedure, exceptions still need to be obtained from nature conservation authorities, extensive tendering procedures must be carried out, and hundreds of applications for individual permits for bridge components, access roads or pipelines must be submitted. Each individual step entails the risk of lawsuits and potential years of delays.

Quickly implement coalition plans

The Rahmede Valley and Ringbahn Bridges should have made it clear to the CDU and SPD coalition members that money alone doesn’t build bridges. Their coalition agreement contains numerous further procedural simplifications, such as approval fictions, deadlines, threshold values for minor projects, or faster court procedures, to be implemented in an Infrastructure Future Act. At the same time, they intend to consistently reduce bureaucracy in environmental and construction law and promote innovations like modular construction in a kit system. The task now is to deliver on their promises and put these plans into action. If the new coalition government consistently implements these resolutions, the Rahmede Valley Bridge could even give momentum to the reconstruction of the Ringbahn Bridge.