Area needed for transport is larger than Thuringia

Berlin. The area taken up by housing and transport infrastructure in Germany is continuing to grow unabated. According to the latest figures for 2009 from the Federal Statistical Office, around 94 hectares per day are built on, divided up or covered with asphalt. “Transport infrastructure alone is consuming an area per year that is almost as large as the island of Sylt,” said the managing director of the German Pro-Rail Alliance, Dirk Flege, on Wednesday in Berlin. To-date, around five percent of Germany is covered with asphalt, an area which is the equivalent of the state of Thuringia. “If space continues to be consumed at the same rate as in the last 10 years, then 30 percent of Germany will have been paved over in 155 years – that is the total area of Germany’s forests.”

Flege called on the federal government to be more decisive in tackling environmental degradation. “The federal government’s 2002 sustainability strategy set out a target of reducing area loss to 30 hectares per day by 2020. It is light years away from achieving that.” According to the official statistics, the rate of land usage for urbanisation and transport has only marginally slowed from 104 down to 94 hectares. The managing director of the Pro-Rail Alliance pointed out that road transport requires three times more space per kilometre than rail transport, not including areas for car parking. “Rail is the most space-saving and modern mode of transport,” said Flege.