Decades ago.....going back to the 1970s....there was chatter in the German state of Hessen of building this simple and short autobahn of 87 km (57 miles)....going from Kassel in the north part of Hessen, down through the heart of the state, and somewhere around Homburg and A5. There, it would end.
So the first few kilometers were simple and just a matter of acquiring farmland.
Somewhere around Neuental....it stopped (45 km or 25 miles). For three decades, it's been halted at this point.
They need about 32 km of paved surface to complete the job.
What happened? Environmentalists (even in the old West German days) stepped in and did delay after delay.
The court system stood up in the past year and finally said 'enough'....the studies have been completed and there's no delay that can be found.
Well...over the past week, the environmentalists have turned out in force in this region affected.....around the Dannenroder Forest area. It'd be best described as a fairly thick forested area.
Police involved? Yesterday....200 police showed up and cleared enough off the property to start the first 300-odd meters of tree-clearing.
Yeah, it's mostly a pain at this point for the police....they have people up in the trees and it requires a fair amount of effort to clear those folks out....before the trees can be cut.
If you watch the nightly news off HR (regional public TV)....it's the number one topic and heavily covered.
The necessity of this piece of road? Even back in the 1970s and 1980s....it was obvious that a lot of commercial traffic was using the other autobahn (A7). From the Green prospective....you've already got one autobahn in the region....you don't need more.
The curious part of this story is that every single day for probably the next month.....to enable the tree-cutting crews to make their way through the forest....the police have to come out in numbers (away from their normal duty), and play 'pick-up-the-protestor' to enable the crews to continue on. You can figure at least the first half of each day...is just police action on getting people out of the trees.
It's part of the police duty and you have to allow some form of protest, but all this extra effort, in attempting not to harm the poor kid hooked 20 meters up in a tree....and getting him safely on the ground....dissolves a bit of patience on the part of the policemen.
The odds of the Autobahn being done in three or four years? I'd give it less than a 20-percent chance. Other delays will occur....even after the trees are finally cut. The whole thing is like a magnet now, for demonstrations.
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