Germany's infrastructure push needs real effort

As construction crews using heavy excavators demolished a major highway bridge in Berlin, pensioner Guido, like many Germans, greeted the dusty spectacle with grim satisfaction.

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“For once, it was very quick, it took about a month,” said the 65-year-old, who only gave his first name, adding that “we're not used to our projects going according to plan”.

A crack first appeared a decade ago in a support structure of the concrete and steel bridge built in 1963 that forms part of the capital city's busy A100 ring road. After the crack recently widened alarmingly, work to take down the bridge finally started in March, leaving piles of rubble below.

Thousands watching the demolition on an internet livestream were happy to see the start of a multi-million-euro renovation project but were upset it took so long.

The case is symptomatic of a problem facing the world's third-biggest economy: an enormous backlog of crumbling infrastructure that needs replacing at a cost of hundreds of billions.

Thousands of roads and bridges, many from the 1960s and 1970s, are reaching the end of their lifespans, and little has been done for years as governments have shied away from major spending.

Germany's new Chancellor Friedrich Merz has pledged to give Europe's top economy a facelift that is also set to include new railway tracks, school buildings and telecom lines.

Even before he took office, his coalition managed to have the previous parliament pass a gigantic 500-billion-euro ($563 billion) infrastructure fund dubbed a spending “bazooka”.