Holiday travellers face traffic trouble
For anyone looking to take a trip over this long Pentecost holiday weekend, getting there likely won't be half the fun. German drivers' association ADAC has warned of packed roads and traffic jams, particularly on Friday and Saturday.
Travellers taking advantage of having Whit Monday off won't be the only ones clogging the roads; the start of school vacations in two German states will make for even more traffic out of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.
With most holiday-makers setting out for the beach or the mountains, motorways leading to the Baltic and North seas and the Alps will be particularly congested. Drivers around big cities, like the capital Berlin or Munich, should also prepare to spend many hours in the car.
Traffic is expected to slow on nearly all German motorways, including the A1 from Cologne to Lübeck, the A3 from Frankfurt to Nuremberg, the A6 from Mannheim to Nuremberg, and the A7 from Hamburg to Füssen and Flensburg.
Road construction could also cause problems, particularly on the A5 between Karlsruhe and Freiburg and the A8 from Merklingen toward Munich and Salzburg, the ACE drivers' club said.
To help ease congestion, authorities in North-Rhine Westphalia are temporarily dismantling road-building sites for the weekend, the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported on Thursday.
"We always do that for Pentecost," a spokesman for the state's road construction and maintenance arm, Bernd Löchter, told the paper. "But we cannot take down the bigger construction sites."
But there are ways for travellers to minimize the hassle on the highway. ADAC's Otto Saalmann told newspaper Die Welt that timing is crucial. "It's best to avoid rush hour," he said, recommending that anyone who wants to get going on Friday do so in the morning or early afternoon hours.
He advised motorists to avoid travelling on Saturday altogether, if possible. The ADAC said motorists could face additional frustrations at the pump, warning that the price of petrol would likely rise over the Pentecost weekend.
DPA/The Local/arp
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Travellers taking advantage of having Whit Monday off won't be the only ones clogging the roads; the start of school vacations in two German states will make for even more traffic out of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.
With most holiday-makers setting out for the beach or the mountains, motorways leading to the Baltic and North seas and the Alps will be particularly congested. Drivers around big cities, like the capital Berlin or Munich, should also prepare to spend many hours in the car.
Traffic is expected to slow on nearly all German motorways, including the A1 from Cologne to Lübeck, the A3 from Frankfurt to Nuremberg, the A6 from Mannheim to Nuremberg, and the A7 from Hamburg to Füssen and Flensburg.
Road construction could also cause problems, particularly on the A5 between Karlsruhe and Freiburg and the A8 from Merklingen toward Munich and Salzburg, the ACE drivers' club said.
To help ease congestion, authorities in North-Rhine Westphalia are temporarily dismantling road-building sites for the weekend, the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported on Thursday.
"We always do that for Pentecost," a spokesman for the state's road construction and maintenance arm, Bernd Löchter, told the paper. "But we cannot take down the bigger construction sites."
But there are ways for travellers to minimize the hassle on the highway. ADAC's Otto Saalmann told newspaper Die Welt that timing is crucial. "It's best to avoid rush hour," he said, recommending that anyone who wants to get going on Friday do so in the morning or early afternoon hours.
He advised motorists to avoid travelling on Saturday altogether, if possible. The ADAC said motorists could face additional frustrations at the pump, warning that the price of petrol would likely rise over the Pentecost weekend.
DPA/The Local/arp
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