Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link

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 for years regarded the most likely scheme, but in late 2010 the Danish project planners declared that an immersed tunnel would present fewer construction risks and cost about the same.

When the Danish Folketing (parliament) ratified the project in March 2009, its cost was estimated at 42 billion Danish kroner (€5 billion). This cost included €1.5 billion for other improvements such as electrifying and improving 160 km of railway from single-track to double-track on the Danish side. In 2011 this was increased to a total of €5.5 billion (at 2008 prices), although this will attract an expected EU subsidy of between €600 million and €1.2 billion. Construction estimates cover the period from 1 April 1998 until the opening of the fixed link in 2021.

New bridges at Fehmarn Sound (1 km) and Storstrøm (slightly more than 3 km long) would be needed. However, according to the treaty, the bridges do not have to be replaced. An upgrade of the Storstrom Bridge is however planned. 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 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. Hence, there will probably be congestion and delays on the German side of the bridge, with this much 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 where it meets 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 35 billion kroner or (€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%, amounting to an expected €600 million to €1.2 billion. The project is expected to have 5% rate of return for Europe.

Tunnel characteristics

Underwater tunnels are either bored 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 harbours. 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, at the planned 17.6 km long 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 m wide and 12–15 m deep. These parameters give a total of some 20 million cubic metres of soils to be dredged. Conventional dredging equipment can only reach to a depth of about 25 m. To excavate the middle portion of the Fehmarn trench – deeper than 25 m below the water's surface – will likely require grab dredgers and trailing suction hopper dredgers.

The proposed tunnel would be 17.6 km long, 40 m 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. A bored tunnel was deemed too expensive.

The precast concrete tunnel sections will have a rectangular cross-section that is about 40 m wide and 10 m 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 m wide, each with two travel lanes and a breakdown lane; while the Northbound and Southbound passageways for trains will be 6 m wide (each) and about 10 m high; the service passageway will be 3 m wide; the standoff space between each "tube" will vary, but the overall width will be 41.2 m. 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 spans, 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 would have carried four motorway lanes and two railway tracks.

Project history

Criticism

There have been objections from local people in Germany, both from those fearing the loss of jobs in connection with the present busy ferry traffic, and from environmental protectionists who believed that wildlife would suffer from the construction of the originally conceived bridge.

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 was not 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.

Despite an offer to help offset the costs of the tunnel by the Danish Cyclists' Federation, it is not planned to include a bicycle path.

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 were drawn up during the Cold War and that since then traffic flow has changed profoundly, meaning that construction of a fixed link is no longer justified.

There is also criticism on the increase of noise for some residents and visitors when moving the freight train traffic from the Jutland-Schleswig route to this route. These critics have been the loudest and they have been able to get a realignment of the planned railway route.