6
votes
Environmentalists have held protests outside a court that is deciding on a tunnel link between Germany and Denmark – they say the project is flawed on many levels
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- Denmark-Germany tunnel: Protesters rally at court hearing | DW | 22.09.2020
- Authors
- Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com)
- Published
- Sep 30 2020
- Word count
- 377 words
Does anyone have links to the environmental groups actual evidence backed claims? The linked petition has no real info. Their website is just alarmist screams with no actual substance. There's this, which is statements but no proof or sources of their claims.
There definitely seems to be some alarmist speculation going on there (e.g claiming there might be more ship collisions due to the construction).. but oddly enough I think their economic arguments against it actually seem to make the most sense.
But agree, some better sources would be nice... especially since I doubt the German and Danish governments would be going ahead with the project unless it was economically beneficial.
Or any sources. "Experts say" has been a universally translated to "we have nothing to actually back this up" in my experience. I'm even willing to bet that the "experts" they can link are only accounting for the current average of vehicles crossing via the ferry and not the increase in traffic a new route would open up and would make them trying to argue both ways that the increased traffic would cause problems for current residents and somehow there won't be increased traffic and it's useless. Which brings up the next point: What does the
century old and very short (426m)45 year old 3.1km tunnel in the middle of the busy city of Hamburg have to do with an 18km tunnel between two countries?Reading further on my own, since these people can't be bothered to back up their claims, there are complaints that the money could be spent elsewhere (except literally every-single-project has this argument against it) and that it's too expensive. The latter I can get on board with as it appears the cost has increased by making the tunnel 200kmh capable instead of the original 160kph estimate and they've turned down offers from cyclist associations to help with the cost if they add a bike path in the tunnel.
The tunnel plan may be based on outdated cold war ideas of unifying areas and the Gedser–Rostock Bridge (or tunnel) might be a better idea however I don't see these groups suggesting it or that it'll be met with complete approval either. I'm feeling a little Hitchhiker's Guide with the idea that something is going to be built, so make a decision on if it'll be this tunnel (which was also originally proposed as a bridge) or the Gedser-Rostock. On the one hand this tunnel is argued that it'll increase traffic in already traffic clogged Hamburg and all the new development is being done east of Hamburg where it could be better served by the Rostock solution, but on the other if they're arguing about cost an 18km tunnel sure sounds a lot cheaper than a 42.5km bridge/tunnel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fehmarn_Belt_Fixed_Link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedser%E2%80%93Rostock_Bridge
Edit
Thank you yammas for pointing me to the correct tunnel even if I still don't see how that tunnel's existence and traffic flow is in any way related to the proposed tunnel.
You've got the wrong Elbtunnel, the new one is quite a bit longer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbe_Tunnel_(1975)
Thanks for that. Only found the century old tunnel and was curious how a tunnel that moves 145k cars per day is also touted as a tourist attraction. I've corrected my comment, thank you again.
I think they make the comparison to argue that the Belt tunnel is massively oversized and overprized for the actual demand. The Elbtunnel is the most important north-south connection across the Elbe and well known in Germany.