Senator Leonhard: Planning for the A26 East is largely complete

Hamburg's Economics Senator Melanie Leonhard has countered criticism of the speed of planning for the A26-Ost motorway and speculation that the project will end. "The A26-Ost currently no longer requires planning acceleration, because the planning has largely been completed," said the SPD politician on Wednesday in a current hour of the Hamburg Parliament.

The plan for the first construction phase for the Hamburg part is about to be approved. That is why the A26 East cannot be on the list of 144 projects agreed by the Berlin traffic light coalition, "because we are no longer in the phase of planning acceleration, we are at this point before approval".

The 9.7-kilometer-long motorway, also known as the Hafenpassage, is intended to close the gap between the A1 and the A7 as an extension of the A26 West. The Senate estimated the cost of the project at 1.85 billion euros. The Naturschutzbund (Nabu) Hamburg criticizes that the Senate ignores the recommendations of its own climate advisory board and wants to implement climate-damaging projects such as the planned A26 Ost without review.

Senator Leonhard described the replacement of the Köhlbrand crossing in the port as urgent. That's not a question. That is why the citizenship commissioned the Senate in 2018 to push ahead with tunnel planning. The preliminary planning is now almost complete.

"If you face the public before the end of the preliminary planning and announce prices and construction times, then you end up with an Elbphilharmonie that has become ten times as expensive as you thought and took ten years longer to build," said Leonhard. That shouldn't happen again. Parliament will therefore be informed and dealt with if there is anything reliable.

The opposition, on the other hand, sees the Senate under pressure. "If the A26-Ost or the new Köhlbrand crossing fails, Mayor Tschentscher will fail!" CDU faction leader Dennis Thering wrote on Twitter.

“After a quarter of a century of planning, the Senate must now quickly tackle the construction of the A26 East. Last but not least, to relieve the city center of long-distance traffic, ”said the FDP MP Anne von Treuenfels-Frowein. "The mayor is responsible for quickly clearing the green blockade of the A 26 East. Mere rhetoric of avoidance and lip service is no longer enough!”

Traffic expert Heike Sudmann (left) said: "I expect more backbone from the Greens and a commitment to an ecologically necessary traffic turnaround from the SPD - and that doesn't tolerate A26 East. Now it is important to secure the Köhlbrand crossing, which is so important for the port, for the future.”