German Bridge Woes Continue

Ever since the accident around the local Wiesbaden-Mainz autobahn bridge.....strategy episodes now occur daily with thousands of people as they discuss the limited ways of getting across the Rhine River.  I'm now stuck into this because the wife now works on the Mainz side of the river.....so my planning talents are put to maximum use.

Basically, an entire region is divided by one river, and there's only one autobahn bridge, one city four-lane bridge, one rail network, and three minor ferries to get 250,000 from one side to the other.  The loss of the 2nd autobahn bridge is serious now, and will not be fixed until late March (earliest).

So, you start to prioritize.  You need a direct route.  You need to pick a route with the fewest number of commuters are using.  You need to avoid bottle-necks.  You want to avoid the routes with significant numbers of stop-lights.  Toss one-lane roads.....construction zones.....and areas thick with bicyclists.

What was a simple forty-minute drive with the bridge in full operation.....is now a seventy-minute drive as a minimum.....and could take up to one-hundred-twenty minutes.

The railway?  Up until last week, it was the one bold answer to the whole problem.  The rail union (GDL) has gotten into a strike mode and promises this week or next to run a 100-hour strike.  The hundred-thousand people who typically use the rail.....were already crowded with their new users....but this simply puts another fifty to hundred thousand cars into the whole mess.

It'd be great to go and drive up within a mile of the remaining and operational bridges and just ride a bike across.....but there's no parking for some wild and crazy idea like that.

Yeah, hours and hours wasted by people.....trying to exercise this mess to a point where you could get the precious hour a day back from this mess.