Fehmarn Belt bridge
Encyclopedia
The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link (Danish language
: , German language
: ) is an immersed tunnel (in earlier design iterations a bridge) that is proposed to connect the German offshore island of Fehmarn
with the Danish island of Lolland
. This would cross over the Fehmarn Belt
in the Baltic Sea
– 18 km (11 mi) wide – hence providing a direct link by railroad and highway
between northern Germany
and the Danish island of Lolland
, and thence to Zealand. This route is known in German as the Vogelfluglinie
and in Danish as the Fugleflugtslinjen (literally, "bird flight line").
Fehmarn Island is already connected by bridge with the German mainland, and Lolland is already connected by bridge with Zealand. Furthermore, Zealand is already connected with the Swedish coast
via the Øresund Bridge; the Fehmarn Belt fixed link would allow more direct transport from Germany to Sweden and Norway.
The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link was tentatively expected to be completed in the year 2018, but the date has been changed to 2020. Originally conceived as a bridge, in December 2010 Femern A/S announced that a tunnel was preferable to a bridge as this would present fewer construction risks, although the financial cost would be broadly similar. The Danish government
approved the project by a large parliamentary majority in January 2011,although a final decision will not be made until 2012.
When the Danish Folketing
(parliament) ratified the project in March 2009, its cost was estimated at DKK
42 bn (EUR
5 bn). This cost included 1.5 billion euros for other improvements such as electrifying
and improving 160 km of railway from single-track to double-track on the Danish side.
New bridges at Fehmarn Sound
(1 km) and Storstrøm
(slightly more than 3 km long) would be needed. However according to the treaty, the Fehmarn Sound Bridge does not have to be replaced, and the Storstrøm Bridge will also not be replaced. Also, the double-track railway
construction in Germany may be delayed by up to seven years, according to the treaty.
The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link and its double-tracks
will shorten the rail journey from Hamburg, Germany to Copenhagen from four hours and 45 minutes to three hours and 15 minutes. According to current plans there will be one passenger train and two freight trains in each direction per hour. As a result, it is thought by some that there will be congestion and delays on the German side, due with the increased volume of rail traffic, if the track widening is delayed.
The highway
between Copenhagen and Hamburg is already a motorway except for 25 km in Germany (35 km before 2008). The rest is a two-lane expressway. The highway will be widened to a motorway except for at the Fehmarn Sound bridge
.
This project is comparable in size to that of the Øresund Bridge or the Great Belt Bridge. According to a report released on 30 November 2010 by Femern A/S (a subsidiary of the Danish state-owned Sund & Bælt Holding A/S), the company tasked with designing and planning the link between Denmark and Germany, the corridor for the alignment of the link has now been determined and will be sited in a corridor running east of the ferry ports of Puttgarden
and Rødbyhavn.
The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link will be financed by state-guaranteed loans, which will be paid by the road and train tolls. Denmark will be solely responsible for guaranteeing the funding of the project at an estimated cost of DKK
35 billion or EUR
4.7 billion and German participation will be limited to the development of the land-based facilities on the German side. The government of Denmark will own the fixed link outright, will be allowed to keep tolls after the loans have been repaid, and will enjoy any employment opportunities at the toll station. The fees are also planned to pay for the Danish railway upgrading.
On the German side, the road will be upgraded to four lanes and the railway to double track and, according to the treaty, paid by the German tax payers rather than by user tolls.
The European Union has designated this project as one of the 30 prioritised transport infrastructure projects (TEN-T
) and will support the project with a contribution, probably around 5–10%.
or immersed
: tunnel boring is common for deepwater tunnels longer than 4 or 5 kilometres (3.1 mi), while immersion is commonly used for tunnels which cross relatively shallow rivers or harbors. Immersion involves dredging a trench across the seafloor, laying a foundation bed of sand or gravel, then lowering precast concrete
tunnel sections into the excavation and covering it with a protective layer of backfill several metres thick.
The Fehmarn Belt
will be crossed by an immersed tunnel, the longest ever constructed. On 30 November 2010, Denmark's Femern A/S project manager announced it had selected immersed tunnel
design submitted by the Ramboll, Arup and TEC consortium. According to the senior project managers, as well as being the world's longest immersed tunnel, it will be the world's longest combined road and rail tunnel; the world's longest under water tunnel for road; the deepest immersed tunnel with road and rail traffic; and the second deepest concrete immersed tunnel. The size of the project is about five times the tunnel part of the Øresund Link between Denmark and Sweden, currently the longest immersed concrete tunnel.
The deepest section of the Fehmarn Belt Trench is 35 metres and the tunnel sections will be about 10 metres high, thus the dredging barges will need to be capable of reaching depths of over 45 metres. Dredging will produce a trench some 40–50 meters wide and 12–15 metres deep. These parameters give a total of some 20 million cubic metres (m3) of soils to be dredged. Conventional dredging equipment can only reach to a depth of about 25 metres. To excavate the middle portion of the Fehmarn trench – deeper than 25m below the water's surface – will likely require grab dredgers and trailing suction hopper dredgers.
The proposed tunnel would be 17.6 km long, 40m deep (below the surface of the sea), and would carry a double-track railway. Arguments brought forward in favour of a tunnel include its starkly reduced environmental impact, its independence from weather conditions, as crosswinds can have considerable impact on trucks and trailers, especially on a north–south bridge.
The precast concrete
tunnel sections will have a rectangular cross-section that is about 40 metres wide and 10 metres high, containing four separate passageways (two for cars and two for trains), plus a small service passageway: There will be separate Northbound and Southbound tubes for vehicles, each 11 meters wide, each with two travel lanes and a breakdown lane; while the Northbound and Southbound passageways for trains will be 6 metres wide (each) and about 10 meters high; the service passageway will be 3 meters wide; the standoff space between each "tube" will vary, but the overall width will be 41.2 metres. The single-level, sectional arrangement of the two road and rail tubes side-by- side – with the road West and the railway East – coincide with the arrangement of the existing road and rail infrastructure and requires no weaving to connect.
, with each span being 724 metres (2,375 ft) long. The four pillars in the substructure
of the bridge would probably have been about 280 m (919 ft) tall. The vertical clearance would have been about 65 m (213 ft) above sea level
, allowing ocean-going ships to pass beneath it. The design of the bridge links was being carried out by the Dissing+Weitling company for its aesthetical features and by the COWI and Obermeyer companies for their civil engineering
aspects. The proposed design carries four motorway lanes and two railway tracks.
between the Danish and German authorities (represented by their Transport Ministers) to proceed with the construction of the fixed link.
Details provided by Danmarks Radio
state that the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link will run 19 km (12 mi) from a point about 2 km (1 mi) east of Rødby
in Denmark to Puttgarden
on the island of Fehmarn which is already connected by bridge to the German mainland. Construction will start in 2014 and is expected to be completed by 2020.
On 3 September 2008, the ministers of transportation from Denmark and Germany, Carina Christensen
and Wolfgang Tiefensee
, signed the treaty for the construction of the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link at a ceremony held in Copenhagen
. On 26 March 2009 the construction was ratified by the Danish parliament, and the German parliament approved the scheme on 18 June 2009.
In December 2010, it was announced that a tunnel would be used rather than bridges
In January 2011, a large majority of the parties in the Danish Parliament voted to support a tunnel-solution. However, national approval procedures in both countries need to be completed and, in Germany, this involves the application for a plan approval process. In Denmark, the project will require the passage in parliament of a Construction Act, and it is expected that all appropriate legislation will be completed by 2013. Construction of the tunnel is planned to begin in 2014 and is expected to last until 2020.
, both from those fearing the loss of jobs in connection with the present busy ferry traffic, and from environmental protectionists who believe that wildlife will suffer from the construction of the crossing.
The crossing has been discussed for more than 30 years. At the beginning of that period, before the reunification of Germany
, the only possible link was towards Hamburg
, as going towards East Germany wasn't a viable option. Although times have changed and Europe has been politically and economically reshaped in the meantime, the link direction has stayed the course. This has been highly criticized, as connecting the two capitals of Copenhagen
and Berlin
and, on a larger scale, a link from Scandinavia
to Poland
and the eastern part of Europe
, would make much more sense in perspective as it would open Denmark to a whole new market. A Gedser-Rostock bridge
, about 50 km (31 mi) further east, has been proposed as an alternative or to complement the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link, as this would connect eastern Germany including Berlin
and places further south with Scandinavia.
and the Kattegat
. Studies carried out by Germany's Federal Agency for Nature Conservation demonstrated that about 70 percent of the water exchange between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea takes place through the Fehmarn strait. It is said that creating additional obstacles would further restrict the supply, causing deterioration of water quality and an increase in undesirable algae species on the Baltic coastlines. However, it was shown that no such additional obstacle appeared after the construction of the Great Belt bridges and the Øresund bridge.
Furthermore, the bridge would have been situated on one of the most important bird migration hotspots, and seriously influence rare and endangered bird species. The construction works of the bridge would affect already sharply regressing populations of marine mammals, such as seals and porpoises. In order to predict precisely far reaching consequences of the construction for the sensitive marine ecosystems, additional research was scheduled for 2009–2012.
and that since then traffic flow has changed profoundly, meaning that construction of a fixed link is no longer justified.
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
: , German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: ) is an immersed tunnel (in earlier design iterations a bridge) that is proposed to connect the German offshore island of Fehmarn
Fehmarn
Fehmarn is an island and - since 2003 - a town on this island in the Baltic Sea, off the eastern coast of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and ca. 18 kilometers south of the Danish island of Lolland...
with the Danish island of Lolland
Lolland
Lolland is the fourth largest island of Denmark, with an area of 1,243 square kilometers . Located in the Baltic sea, it is part of Region Sjælland...
. This would cross over the Fehmarn Belt
Fehmarn Belt
Fehmarn Belt is a strait connecting the Bay of Kiel and the Bay of Mecklenburg in the western part of the Baltic Sea between the German island of Fehmarn and the Danish island of Lolland. Ferries operated by Scandlines connect Puttgarden and Rødby on the two islands.The strait features a...
in the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
– 18 km (11 mi) wide – hence providing a direct link by railroad and highway
Highway
A highway is any public road. In American English, the term is common and almost always designates major roads. In British English, the term designates any road open to the public. Any interconnected set of highways can be variously referred to as a "highway system", a "highway network", or a...
between northern Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and the Danish island of Lolland
Lolland
Lolland is the fourth largest island of Denmark, with an area of 1,243 square kilometers . Located in the Baltic sea, it is part of Region Sjælland...
, and thence to Zealand. This route is known in German as the Vogelfluglinie
Vogelfluglinie
The ' or ' is a transport corridor between Copenhagen, Denmark, and Hamburg, Germany.As the Danish and German names imply, the corridor is also an important bird migration route between arctic Scandinavia and Central Europe.-Ferry link:The core of the connection is the ferry link between Rødby ...
and in Danish as the Fugleflugtslinjen (literally, "bird flight line").
Fehmarn Island is already connected by bridge with the German mainland, and Lolland is already connected by bridge with Zealand. Furthermore, Zealand is already connected with the Swedish coast
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
via the Øresund Bridge; the Fehmarn Belt fixed link would allow more direct transport from Germany to Sweden and Norway.
The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link was tentatively expected to be completed in the year 2018, but the date has been changed to 2020. Originally conceived as a bridge, in December 2010 Femern A/S announced that a tunnel was preferable to a bridge as this would present fewer construction risks, although the financial cost would be broadly similar. The Danish government
Government of Denmark
Denmark is a constitutional monarchy with a representative democracy based on a unicameral parliamentary system. The affairs of Government are decided by a Cabinet of Ministers, which is led by a Prime Minister...
approved the project by a large parliamentary majority in January 2011,although a final decision will not be made until 2012.
Project
Beginning at least as early as 2000, German and Danish transportation planners pushed for a "fixed link" – either a bridge or a tunnel – across the Fehmarn Strait. A bridge was widely regarded, for years, as the most likely scheme, and it was somewhat surprising when the Danish project planners selected an immersed tunnel design in late 2010.When the Danish Folketing
Folketing
The Folketing , is the national parliament of Denmark. The name literally means "People's thing"—that is, the people's governing assembly. It is located in Christiansborg Palace, on the islet of Slotsholmen in central Copenhagen....
(parliament) ratified the project in March 2009, its cost was estimated at DKK
Danish krone
The krone is the official currency of the Kingdom of Denmark consisting of Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. It is subdivided into 100 øre...
42 bn (EUR
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
5 bn). This cost included 1.5 billion euros for other improvements such as electrifying
Railway electrification system
A railway electrification system supplies electrical energy to railway locomotives and multiple units as well as trams so that they can operate without having an on-board prime mover. There are several different electrification systems in use throughout the world...
and improving 160 km of railway from single-track to double-track on the Danish side.
New bridges at Fehmarn Sound
Fehmarn Sound bridge
The Fehmarn Sound Bridge connects the German island of Fehmarn in the Baltic Sea with the German mainland near Großenbrode.-Description:The long road and rail suspended deck arch bridge together with associated earthworks crosses the wide Fehmarn Sound. Construction began in 1958 and the bridge...
(1 km) and Storstrøm
Storstrøm Bridge
Storstrøm Bridge is a road and railway arch bridge that crosses Storstrømmen between the islands of Falster and Masnedø in Denmark....
(slightly more than 3 km long) would be needed. However according to the treaty, the Fehmarn Sound Bridge does not have to be replaced, and the Storstrøm Bridge will also not be replaced. Also, the double-track railway
Double track
A double track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single track railway where trains in both directions share the same track.- Overview :...
construction in Germany may be delayed by up to seven years, according to the treaty.
The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link and its double-tracks
Double track
A double track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single track railway where trains in both directions share the same track.- Overview :...
will shorten the rail journey from Hamburg, Germany to Copenhagen from four hours and 45 minutes to three hours and 15 minutes. According to current plans there will be one passenger train and two freight trains in each direction per hour. As a result, it is thought by some that there will be congestion and delays on the German side, due with the increased volume of rail traffic, if the track widening is delayed.
The highway
Highway
A highway is any public road. In American English, the term is common and almost always designates major roads. In British English, the term designates any road open to the public. Any interconnected set of highways can be variously referred to as a "highway system", a "highway network", or a...
between Copenhagen and Hamburg is already a motorway except for 25 km in Germany (35 km before 2008). The rest is a two-lane expressway. The highway will be widened to a motorway except for at the Fehmarn Sound bridge
Fehmarn Sound bridge
The Fehmarn Sound Bridge connects the German island of Fehmarn in the Baltic Sea with the German mainland near Großenbrode.-Description:The long road and rail suspended deck arch bridge together with associated earthworks crosses the wide Fehmarn Sound. Construction began in 1958 and the bridge...
.
This project is comparable in size to that of the Øresund Bridge or the Great Belt Bridge. According to a report released on 30 November 2010 by Femern A/S (a subsidiary of the Danish state-owned Sund & Bælt Holding A/S), the company tasked with designing and planning the link between Denmark and Germany, the corridor for the alignment of the link has now been determined and will be sited in a corridor running east of the ferry ports of Puttgarden
Puttgarden
Puttgarden is a ferry harbour and a village on the German island of Fehmarn. It lies on an important route between Germany and Denmark known as the Vogelfluglinie which crosses the 18 km strait, the Fehmarnbelt, to Rødby on the island of Lolland....
and Rødbyhavn.
The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link will be financed by state-guaranteed loans, which will be paid by the road and train tolls. Denmark will be solely responsible for guaranteeing the funding of the project at an estimated cost of DKK
Danish krone
The krone is the official currency of the Kingdom of Denmark consisting of Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. It is subdivided into 100 øre...
35 billion or EUR
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
4.7 billion and German participation will be limited to the development of the land-based facilities on the German side. The government of Denmark will own the fixed link outright, will be allowed to keep tolls after the loans have been repaid, and will enjoy any employment opportunities at the toll station. The fees are also planned to pay for the Danish railway upgrading.
On the German side, the road will be upgraded to four lanes and the railway to double track and, according to the treaty, paid by the German tax payers rather than by user tolls.
The European Union has designated this project as one of the 30 prioritised transport infrastructure projects (TEN-T
Trans-European Transport Networks
The Trans-European Transport Networks are a planned set of road, rail, air and water transport networks designed to serve the entire continent of Europe. The TEN-T networks are part of a wider system of Trans-European Networks , including a telecommunications network and a proposed energy network...
) and will support the project with a contribution, probably around 5–10%.
Tunnel characteristics
Underwater tunnels are either boredTunnel boring machine
A tunnel boring machine also known as a "mole", is a machine used to excavate tunnels with a circular cross section through a variety of soil and rock strata. They can bore through anything from hard rock to sand. Tunnel diameters can range from a metre to almost 16 metres to date...
or immersed
Immersed tube
An immersed tube is a kind of underwater tunnel composed of segments, constructed elsewhere and floated to the tunnel site to be sunk into place and then linked together. They are commonly used for road and rail crossings of rivers, estuaries and sea channels/harbours...
: tunnel boring is common for deepwater tunnels longer than 4 or 5 kilometres (3.1 mi), while immersion is commonly used for tunnels which cross relatively shallow rivers or harbors. Immersion involves dredging a trench across the seafloor, laying a foundation bed of sand or gravel, then lowering precast concrete
Precast concrete
By producing precast concrete in a controlled environment , the precast concrete is afforded the opportunity to properly cure and be closely monitored by plant employees. Utilizing a Precast Concrete system offers many potential advantages over site casting of concrete...
tunnel sections into the excavation and covering it with a protective layer of backfill several metres thick.
The Fehmarn Belt
Fehmarn Belt
Fehmarn Belt is a strait connecting the Bay of Kiel and the Bay of Mecklenburg in the western part of the Baltic Sea between the German island of Fehmarn and the Danish island of Lolland. Ferries operated by Scandlines connect Puttgarden and Rødby on the two islands.The strait features a...
will be crossed by an immersed tunnel, the longest ever constructed. On 30 November 2010, Denmark's Femern A/S project manager announced it had selected immersed tunnel
Immersed tube
An immersed tube is a kind of underwater tunnel composed of segments, constructed elsewhere and floated to the tunnel site to be sunk into place and then linked together. They are commonly used for road and rail crossings of rivers, estuaries and sea channels/harbours...
design submitted by the Ramboll, Arup and TEC consortium. According to the senior project managers, as well as being the world's longest immersed tunnel, it will be the world's longest combined road and rail tunnel; the world's longest under water tunnel for road; the deepest immersed tunnel with road and rail traffic; and the second deepest concrete immersed tunnel. The size of the project is about five times the tunnel part of the Øresund Link between Denmark and Sweden, currently the longest immersed concrete tunnel.
The deepest section of the Fehmarn Belt Trench is 35 metres and the tunnel sections will be about 10 metres high, thus the dredging barges will need to be capable of reaching depths of over 45 metres. Dredging will produce a trench some 40–50 meters wide and 12–15 metres deep. These parameters give a total of some 20 million cubic metres (m3) of soils to be dredged. Conventional dredging equipment can only reach to a depth of about 25 metres. To excavate the middle portion of the Fehmarn trench – deeper than 25m below the water's surface – will likely require grab dredgers and trailing suction hopper dredgers.
The proposed tunnel would be 17.6 km long, 40m deep (below the surface of the sea), and would carry a double-track railway. Arguments brought forward in favour of a tunnel include its starkly reduced environmental impact, its independence from weather conditions, as crosswinds can have considerable impact on trucks and trailers, especially on a north–south bridge.
The precast concrete
Precast concrete
By producing precast concrete in a controlled environment , the precast concrete is afforded the opportunity to properly cure and be closely monitored by plant employees. Utilizing a Precast Concrete system offers many potential advantages over site casting of concrete...
tunnel sections will have a rectangular cross-section that is about 40 metres wide and 10 metres high, containing four separate passageways (two for cars and two for trains), plus a small service passageway: There will be separate Northbound and Southbound tubes for vehicles, each 11 meters wide, each with two travel lanes and a breakdown lane; while the Northbound and Southbound passageways for trains will be 6 metres wide (each) and about 10 meters high; the service passageway will be 3 meters wide; the standoff space between each "tube" will vary, but the overall width will be 41.2 metres. The single-level, sectional arrangement of the two road and rail tubes side-by- side – with the road West and the railway East – coincide with the arrangement of the existing road and rail infrastructure and requires no weaving to connect.
Bridge characteristics
Initially, a bridge was proposed. The bridge would be about 20 km long, comprising three identical cable-stayed spansCable-stayed bridge
A cable-stayed bridge is a bridge that consists of one or more columns , with cables supporting the bridge deck....
, with each span being 724 metres (2,375 ft) long. The four pillars in the substructure
Substructure
In mathematical logic, an substructure or subalgebra is a structure whose domain is a subset of that of a bigger structure, and whose functions and relations are the traces of the functions and relations of the bigger structure...
of the bridge would probably have been about 280 m (919 ft) tall. The vertical clearance would have been about 65 m (213 ft) above sea level
Sea level
Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...
, allowing ocean-going ships to pass beneath it. The design of the bridge links was being carried out by the Dissing+Weitling company for its aesthetical features and by the COWI and Obermeyer companies for their civil engineering
Civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...
aspects. The proposed design carries four motorway lanes and two railway tracks.
Project history
On 29 June 2007 an interim agreement was reached in BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
between the Danish and German authorities (represented by their Transport Ministers) to proceed with the construction of the fixed link.
Details provided by Danmarks Radio
Danmarks Radio
DR – officially rendered into English as the Danish Broadcasting Corporation – is Denmark's national broadcasting corporation. Founded in 1925 as a public-service organization, it is today Denmark's oldest and largest electronic media enterprise...
state that the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link will run 19 km (12 mi) from a point about 2 km (1 mi) east of Rødby
Rødby
Rødby is a town and a former municipality on the island of Lolland in Denmark. The former Rødby municipality covered an area of 120 km², and had a total population of 6,590...
in Denmark to Puttgarden
Puttgarden
Puttgarden is a ferry harbour and a village on the German island of Fehmarn. It lies on an important route between Germany and Denmark known as the Vogelfluglinie which crosses the 18 km strait, the Fehmarnbelt, to Rødby on the island of Lolland....
on the island of Fehmarn which is already connected by bridge to the German mainland. Construction will start in 2014 and is expected to be completed by 2020.
On 3 September 2008, the ministers of transportation from Denmark and Germany, Carina Christensen
Carina Christensen
Carina Christensen is a Danish politician representing the Conservative People's Party. She was the Minister of Family and Consumer Affairs in the Cabinet of Anders Fogh Rasmussen II from 15 December 2006 to 23 November 2007. She replaced Lars Barfoed after he had been criticized for poor official...
and Wolfgang Tiefensee
Wolfgang Tiefensee
Wolfgang Tiefensee is a German SPD politician. He was the Federal Minister for Transport, Building and Urban Development in the grand coalition cabinet led by Angela Merkel since November 22, 2005....
, signed the treaty for the construction of the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link at a ceremony held in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
. On 26 March 2009 the construction was ratified by the Danish parliament, and the German parliament approved the scheme on 18 June 2009.
In December 2010, it was announced that a tunnel would be used rather than bridges
In January 2011, a large majority of the parties in the Danish Parliament voted to support a tunnel-solution. However, national approval procedures in both countries need to be completed and, in Germany, this involves the application for a plan approval process. In Denmark, the project will require the passage in parliament of a Construction Act, and it is expected that all appropriate legislation will be completed by 2013. Construction of the tunnel is planned to begin in 2014 and is expected to last until 2020.
Criticism
There have been objections from local people in GermanyGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, both from those fearing the loss of jobs in connection with the present busy ferry traffic, and from environmental protectionists who believe that wildlife will suffer from the construction of the crossing.
The crossing has been discussed for more than 30 years. At the beginning of that period, before the reunification of Germany
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
, the only possible link was towards Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, as going towards East Germany wasn't a viable option. Although times have changed and Europe has been politically and economically reshaped in the meantime, the link direction has stayed the course. This has been highly criticized, as connecting the two capitals of Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and, on a larger scale, a link from Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
to Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and the eastern part of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, would make much more sense in perspective as it would open Denmark to a whole new market. A Gedser-Rostock bridge
Gedser-Rostock bridge
The Gedser-Rostock Bridge is a proposed project to link the Danish island of Falster with the German city of Rostock, stretching 40-45 kilometres across the Baltic Sea. The proposal is an alternative to the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link....
, about 50 km (31 mi) further east, has been proposed as an alternative or to complement the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link, as this would connect eastern Germany including Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and places further south with Scandinavia.
Environmental impact
Critics believed that a bridge would create one more barrier for the water exchange to the Baltic Sea, which is dependent on the inflow of water from the North Sea. This oxygenated and salty water from the North Sea, crucial for marine ecosystems, reaches the Baltic Sea via the SkagerrakSkagerrak
The Skagerrak is a strait running between Norway and the southwest coast of Sweden and the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, connecting the North Sea and the Kattegat sea area, which leads to the Baltic Sea.-Name:...
and the Kattegat
Kattegat
The Kattegat , or Kattegatt is a sea area bounded by the Jutland peninsula and the Straits islands of Denmark on the west and south, and the provinces of Västergötland, Scania, Halland and Bohuslän in Sweden on the east. The Baltic Sea drains into the Kattegat through the Øresund and the Danish...
. Studies carried out by Germany's Federal Agency for Nature Conservation demonstrated that about 70 percent of the water exchange between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea takes place through the Fehmarn strait. It is said that creating additional obstacles would further restrict the supply, causing deterioration of water quality and an increase in undesirable algae species on the Baltic coastlines. However, it was shown that no such additional obstacle appeared after the construction of the Great Belt bridges and the Øresund bridge.
Furthermore, the bridge would have been situated on one of the most important bird migration hotspots, and seriously influence rare and endangered bird species. The construction works of the bridge would affect already sharply regressing populations of marine mammals, such as seals and porpoises. In order to predict precisely far reaching consequences of the construction for the sensitive marine ecosystems, additional research was scheduled for 2009–2012.
Social concerns
Detractors believe that the construction of the fixed link and the resulting shift of cargo transport away from the existing ferry would mean a radical decrease in ferry operation and the loss of jobs. At the same time, employment connected to construction works would be only short-term. Furthermore, it is claimed that the project might be economically unjustified, as predictions of passenger traffic and goods transport may be overestimated and there is a considerable risk that the investment will not be recouped. Some suggest that the original plans for the bridge were drawn up during the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
and that since then traffic flow has changed profoundly, meaning that construction of a fixed link is no longer justified.