Fellow citizens,
Summertime is the season for travelling and many of you will be on your way to your holiday destinations during these weeks. Unfortunately, many of you also spend quite some time stuck in tailbacks.
The Government wants to change that. We have therefore decided to follow on from our successes in reconstructing Eastern Germany. An act aimed at accelerating transport infrastructure planning, which includes motorways and railways, will be in place here until the end of this year.
We want to extend this act, which has been very successful, to the whole of Germany. For you notice when you travel from the Rhineland to Rügen that the journey is much shorter now and that motorways have been built in record time in this part of the country. Why shouldn’t this be the case in all Länder in Germany?
The Government has therefore launched a Transport Infrastructure Planning Acceleration Act which will considerably shorten the planning time for key infrastructure measures in all Länder. We have singled out 86 designated major projects: ring roads, stretches of motorway, railway bottlenecks. The prerequisites will be created for carrying out theses projects much more quickly so that shortcomings will not be so apparent.
Our view is that the environment need not suffer as a result of these accelerations. And of course, less red tape will also create new jobs in the construction industry and, at the same time, raise the quality of life in Germany. When you visit other countries, for instance in the European Union, you see that construction projects are carried out much more quickly there.
Why should what is possible in neighbouring countries or our successful projects in the new Länder not be implemented in the whole of Germany? The Government has taken up the challenge and I hope that you will all benefit.
