Germany’s motorways and rail network are in a deplorable state, with the extent of the defects varying significantly by federal state, according to a recent survey. The same applies to the expenditures flowing into the maintenance, as shown by the data of the Federal Ministry of Transport, which were requested by the Green Party’s parliamentary group and reported by the “Spiegel”.
According to the data, the motorways in Saarland, Thuringia and Schleswig-Holstein are in the best condition, with at least 60 percent of the motorways in each of the three states having a very good to good overall condition. The three last-placed states are North Rhine-Westphalia, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Hesse, where, in some cases, nearly half of the motorways only achieve mediocre to very poor condition ratings. Bavaria, Germany’s largest state, is just behind.
At the bottom of the list is Hesse, where, on average, three million euros per kilometer of motorway are invested, a record high. North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria follow. If the total financial resources are taken into account, the Free State of Bavaria received the most money of all the federal states for motorways between 2010 and 2024, almost 24 billion euros. This fits with the criticism that former CSU transport ministers had previously favored their home state with generous funding.
Similar defects can also be found in the rail network. This is evident, for example, in the case of railway bridges: a total of 1,049 bridges can be assigned to the worst condition category nationwide. 374 of these bridges are located in North Rhine-Westphalia, 132 in Baden-Württemberg. Such deficiencies have an impact on punctuality. According to the Bahn’s statistics, 216 trains are delayed every day in North Rhine-Westphalia, which is 24 percent of all trains in operation there. Schleswig-Holstein and Brandenburg (both 44 percent) perform worse.
In Bavaria, the high number of slow zones is also notable. Trains have to brake because of defects on the track in 90 locations in the Free State. North Rhine-Westphalia follows with 36 problem areas. “Germany has invested too little in its infrastructure” said the leader of the Green Party, Felix Banaszak. The backlog is enormous, “and that’s why we need a reform of the debt brake.