Gedser-Rostock bridge - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Gedser-Rostock Bridge is a proposed project to link the Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

island of Falster

Falster

Falster is an island in south-eastern Denmark with an area of 514 km² and 43,398 inhabitants as of 1 January 2010. Located in the Baltic sea, it is part of Region Sjælland and is administered by Guldborgsund Municipality...

with the German city of Rostock

Rostock

Rostock -Early history:In the 11th century Polabian Slavs founded a settlement at the Warnow river called Roztoc ; the name Rostock is derived from that designation. The Danish king Valdemar I set the town aflame in 1161.Afterwards the place was settled by German traders...

, stretching 40-45 kilometres (25–28 miles) across 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...

. The proposal is an alternative to the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link.

The bridge (or tunnel) would complete the European route E55

European route E55

European route E 55 is a E-route. It passes through the following cities:Helsingborg … Helsingør – Copenhagen – Køge – Vordingborg – Nykøbing Falster – Gedser … Rostock – Berlin – Lübbenau – Dresden – Teplice – Prague – Tábor – Linz – Salzburg – Villach – Tarvisio – Udine – Palmanova – Mestre...

and be the main link between 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,...

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...

. Today, Gedser

Gedser

Gedser is a town at the southern tip of the Danish island of Falster in the Guldborgsund Municipality in Sjælland region. It is the southernmost town in Denmark. The town has a population of 809...

and Rostock

Rostock

are linked by the Scandlines

Scandlines

Scandlines is a major German-Danish ferry operator.It consists of a parent company, Scandlines AG, and under this parent company a German subsidiary named Scandlines Deutschland GmbH and a Danish subsidiary named Scandlines Danmark A/S...

ferries who also operate a Fehmarn Belt line

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 ...

.

If built as a bridge, it would be the longest bridge in the world over a body of water. If built as a tunnel

Tunnel

A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...

, it would still be the longest underwater tunnel in the world, but measured by total tunnel length the Seikan Tunnel

Seikan Tunnel

The Seikan Tunnel is a railway tunnel in Japan, with a long portion under the seabed. Track level is about below seabed and below sea level. It travels beneath the Tsugaru Strait—connecting Aomori Prefecture on the Japanese island of Honshu and the island of Hokkaido—as part of the Kaikyo Line...

and the Channel Tunnel

Channel Tunnel

The Channel Tunnel is a undersea rail tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent in the United Kingdom with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais near Calais in northern France beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. At its lowest point, it is deep...

are longer. It would also be the only bridge across open sea

Sea

A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...

and not a named strait

Strait

A strait or straits is a narrow, typically navigable channel of water that connects two larger, navigable bodies of water. It most commonly refers to a channel of water that lies between two land masses, but it may also refer to a navigable channel through a body of water that is otherwise not...

, belt

The Belts

The Belts are two straits in the Danish archipelago, Little Belt and Great Belt.See also the march across the Belts.See also danish straits....

, sound

Sound (geography)

In geography a sound or seaway is a large sea or ocean inlet larger than a bay, deeper than a bight and wider than a fjord; or it may be defined as a narrow sea or ocean channel between two bodies of land ....

or channel

Channel (geography)

In physical geography, a channel is the physical confine of a river, slough or ocean strait consisting of a bed and banks.A channel is also the natural or human-made deeper course through a reef, sand bar, bay, or any shallow body of water...

.

Although the distance is twice as long as across the Fehmarn Belt, the bridge could be built in part as a low bridge since water depths are more shallow than in the Fehmarn Belt. The Gedser Reef offers depths of less than 10 metres (33 ft) for some 15 km (9 mi) to the southeast of Gedser.

Arguments

Proponents argue a Gedser-Rostock bridge would be much better situated as a link from Scandinavia

Scandinavia

to Berlin

Berlin

and high-growth

Economic growth

In economics, economic growth is defined as the increasing capacity of the economy to satisfy the wants of goods and services of the members of society. Economic growth is enabled by increases in productivity, which lowers the inputs for a given amount of output. Lowered costs increase demand...

areas in Eastern

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

/Central Europe

Central Europe

Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

(especially 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...

). The distance between Copenhagen and Berlin would be 140 km (87 mi) shorter by Gedser-Rostock as compared to by the Fehmarn Belt. From Copenhagen to Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, 160 km (99 mi) could be saved, and from Copenhagen to Poland, 230 km (143 mi).
In the debate on the Fehmarn Belt project opponents in Denmark have called it a vision dating from the Cold War

Cold 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...

, when it would have formed the obvious link from Copenhagen to 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...

and Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

. Also, Hamburg already today is a bottleneck for road and rail traffic. The drawback of the Gedser-Rostock solution, apart from its greater length, is the journey from Copenhagen to Hamburg

Hamburg

will be increased by 60 km (37 mi). The current ferries across the Fehmarn Belt would, however, offer an alternative if they continued to operate.

Political views

The Danish Social Liberal Party and the Danish People's Party

Danish People's Party

The Danish People's Party is a political party in Denmark which is frequently described as right-wing populist by political scientists and commentators. The party is led by Pia Kjærsgaard...

said on 3 June 2007 that they favoured the Gedser-Rostock bridge. They were supported by traffic researchers and a consultant from the German Ministry of Traffic.

The Danish transport minister Flemming Hansen (Conservatives

Conservative People's Party (Denmark)

The Conservative People's Party , also known as Conservatives is a Danish political party.-History:The party was founded 1915 based mostly on its predecessor, Højre , but also on the Free Conservatives and a moderate faction of Venstre , the liberals.The party has participated in several coalition...

) rejected the Gedser-Rostock proposal on 4 June 2007, claiming it would put the process "ten years back". The Social Democrats

Social Democrats (Denmark)

The Social Democrats , is a Danish political party committed to the political ideology of social democracy. It is the major coalition partner in Denmark's government since the 2011 parliamentary election, and party leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt is the current Prime Minister of Denmark...

, who agree with the Government in this matter, mainly saw the new proposal as an attempt to derail the process, but also said that "if the Germans won't join in, but wish something else, then we will of course listen".

On 29 June 2007, the Danish and German authorities agreed to support the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link project rather than the Gedser-Rostock bridge.

Landside connections

The current state of landside roads and railways forms a picture opposite to that of the Fehmarn Belt project. This explains, in part, why the Danish government has reacted very negatively to the Gedser-Rostock proposal.

For Fehmarn Belt, Germany would need to complete 25 km (16 mi) more motorway, construct an alternative to the two-lane 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...

, and improve railways, whereas the E47

European route E55

motorway is near-complete on the Danish side.

For Gedser-Rostock, the landside burden would be tilted to the disadvantage of Denmark, needing to build another 35 km (22 mi) of motorway, whereas Rostock is already well-attached to the German Autobahn system.