This is the cycleway over the Rhine between Breisach (Germany) and Colmar (France). As international border crossings go, it’s not very exciting, but bear with me.
A while ago when I was whining that we need a bit more road space to be given to people and bikes, instead of giving cars all the infrastructure they need and then some,* the person I was talking to gave me a long-suffering smile, and said “But surely you can’t force people to take one form of transport over another.”
Fair enough, and in keeping with the European ideal of ‘freedom of movement’ which is why there aren’t any border controls here and you can cross without a passport. You could also once cross here by train, but not any more: the road and rail bridges were destroyed towards the end of the second world war, and while the the road connection was rebuilt, the railway was apparently deemed ‘too expensive’. If you choose to use rail to cross from Freiburg to Colmar, you then have to go 25km south to Neuenburg Am Rhein.
There’s reasonably good cycleway on the German side and a rather unpleasantly narrow footpath. The cycleway now continues a few mètres into France, whereupon you’re faced with a narrow snow-blocked footpath, on a bridge with large trucks driving past and a ‘cyclists dismount’ sign.
So, how can we cross between these two nations at this point?
The choice offered is:
Rail: Nothing
Walking: Difficult and unpleasant.
Cycling: Not too bad most of the way, then technically illegal, and/or unpleasant.
Car: Easy and fast.
Well, we can’t take space from cars, can we? That would remove people’s right to choose.
*Fortunately for my social life, I don’t do this very often. I’m just saying.
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February 13, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Kim
It is a good point, you could equally well ask why are cars so heavily subsidised? After all one of the reasons the rail bridges were not rebuilt after WWII is that much of the reconstruction was carried out with American money. The Americans had given up manufacturing trains, but could see a good export market for cars, if the rebuilt the roads across Europe. More recently, there has been a very expensive car scrappage scheme subsidising the big car makers.
February 14, 2011 at 12:40 pm
Andy in Germany
Well said Kim. I find it very frustrating that building of yet another redundant road is ‘investment’ but keeping a bus service going is ‘subsidy’.
Even worse, cars are the most utterly inefficient, unjust, uneconomical, unpleasant and downright dangerous transport method we could possibly have devised, yet it survives on subsidies supported by ‘business as usual’ politicians, who than whine that €5000 for a short cycle lane is ‘too expensive’ What an insane world we live in.
And yes, Germany did invent the car scrap page scheme, and drivers of my acquaintance whined that it didn’t go on long enough…
February 14, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Frits B
It seems trains are victims to technical progress. In the good old days of steam and later Diesel engines, trains could easily cross borders provided they had the same track width; Russia and Spain were, and are, notable exceptions. Now that most trains are electric, they can no longer cross borders without complicated and expensive adjustments due to differences in voltage and safety systems. And as each country is adamant that its dick is bigger than the neighbours’, modern trains still meet with the phenomenon border. The original Orient Express could do with one engine for the entire trip; the modern version changes engines at each border.
A simple practical example: if I want to travel from Groningen to Hamburg, an easy 230 km straight East, I have to take the train to Utrecht, 180 km southward, then change to the ICE to Berlin and when in Germany, change in Hannover for Hamburg. The distance covered is at least tripled and I need to make reservations in advance. The alternative is a slow regional train from Groningen to the German border at Nieuweschans, where I then can change to a German regional train to Leer from where I can choose from various regional and intercity trains. But it is complicated and slow. Conclusion: the car is easier, more comfortable and quicker. And that is why the railway bridge between Breisach and Neuf-Brisach will probably never be rebuilt.
I would have expected “Europe” to end all this hassle. I don’t own a car, and hate having to plan travels as if I went on a Polar expedition. I have relatives living in Germany just across the border, but I haven’t seen them in years as they are not covered by public transport. If there wasn’t a death in the family every now and then for which they come over I wouldn’t know about them any more …
February 14, 2011 at 10:24 pm
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