German Road Progress

Abstract

ALTHOUGH it is only two years since Munich entertained the seventh International Road Congress, the city is holding another road congress and in addition a large exhibition of road building machinery on September 16-27. The Research Department of the German State Highways Commission and the leading road construction firms are in charge of all the arrangements. In Roads and Road Construction of August 1, Dr. Otto Reismann outlines the programme for the Congress. He points out that the present road construction programme in Germany is on so large a scale, and has been pushed forward so rapidly that great improvements in technical matters have ensued in connexion with road and bridge construction. At the Congress these will be discussed by Government, scientific and industrial experts. The road building machinery exhibition will be held in the open on the Munich Fair Ground, and will show the visitors the very rapid progress made in the mechanization of road construction. The quality of the materials used and the design of the machines have been vastly improved. The Congress will not be confined to purely business sessions. The German motor roads are not built merely for transport purposes. An attempt has been made to build them in such a way that they are in harmony with the landscape and the country in which they lie. Included therefore in the Congress programme are excursions and journeys of inspection over specially constructed motor roads and over the German Alpine highways. At the same time as the Congress there will be an art exhibition on roads as seen by modern art. This is an attempt to demonstrate the strong impression modern art has received from the inspiration of the new roads. It is anticipated that the first 600 miles of the new motor roads (autobahn) will be thrown open to traffic in the coming autumn. In two years time, thoroughfares will be completed between Hamburg and Karlsruhe, Stettin and Munich, Ruhr and Karlsruhe, and Stuttgart to Salzburg via Munich.