Germany’s Infrastructure Skids Into Crisis on Merkel’s Autobahn
- Highway in northeast Germany collapsed 12 years after opening
- Government investing isn’t keeping pace with wear and tear
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In Langsdorf, a tiny 200-person village about 25 miles from Germany’s Baltic coast, the only thing separating residents from the local tavern Zur Kastanie is a narrow strip of pavement. The normally sleepy main street is now clogged with about 10,000 cars and trucks a day, making a quick visit for a mug of beer and a plate of smoked pork all but impossible.
“The noise and the stench of traffic are the biggest hardships for us,” Mayor Hartmut Kolschewski said standing alongside the cause of the problem: a stretch of the nearby A20 Autobahn that crumbled last year.