Originally Posted by
caspritz78
The A8 between Karlsruhe, Stuttgart and Munich needs and gets a major upgrade and the work isn't very easy. Right now long parts of the A8 have only two lanes and not even a break down lane.
Actually the economic crisis will cause more infrastructure projects because of all the money the governments are investing.
In general highway construction in Germany takes long because the highways have to handle a lot of traffic and need a really good foundation in the ground to last several years. For example the US interstates have much thiner foundation and thiner surface and can be built much faster.
Glad you agree with my thesis. The fact that the roads are better also has the nice effect that one can drive faster while still being relatively safe. I once tried to reach the speed limiter on my car somewhere in the desert between Texas and Arizona on a perfectly straight street. At 144mph (231 km/h) I chickened out; the car was too hard to control. The worst thing though was braking. Because the surface was rough when I stepped on the brakes the wheel was really hard to control. This was in a 2006 Pontiac GTO, a Holden Monaro with the Corvette LS2 6ltr 400hp motor, for the gearheads among you. It would be so nice to have this car in Germany, but then again, we don't have those deserted long roads.
Till