Completed section of the A14 motorway (archive): 14.2 billion euros for road damage alone
Photo: Jens Büttner / dpa
The construction of roads, bridges and tunnels is becoming more and more expensive for the public sector.
As the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden announced on Wednesday, the prices for road construction work in Germany rose by 29.1 percent in 2020 compared to 2011.
The cost of building bridges rose by almost a quarter during the period.
In 2020, government investments in infrastructure were a good 40 percent higher than in 2011.
According to the Federal Office, the state spent a total of 14.2 billion euros in 2020 to repair road damage and build new roads and bridges.
In 2011 it was 10.1 billion euros.
The share of expenditure on road construction in the total public budget fell slightly from 0.9 percent in 2011 to 0.8 percent in 2020.
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However, a well-developed road infrastructure is not only susceptible to maintenance; At the same time, it represents a considerable asset. The statisticians put the value of the German road network at around 394.2 billion euros in 2020, an increase in value of 24.5 percent compared to 2011. The loss in value of the road network caused by the weather and wear and tear was accordingly 14.8 billion euros in 2020, almost 30 percent higher than in 2011.
The condition of bridges in Germany is very different, as the Federal Office explained with reference to the Federal Highway Research Institute.
Of the almost 40,000 bridges in the federal trunk road network, 12.9 percent are in good or very good condition.
In 42.5 percent, the condition was considered satisfactory, around a third were in sufficient condition.
Serious deficiencies were found in just over every tenth bridge: In 9.9 percent of the cases, the condition was considered insufficient, in 1.6 percent as insufficient.
mik / AFP