The Whitsun weekend has started with the expected mile-long traffic jams on the holiday routes from Bavaria to the south. On the Tauern Autobahn (A10), the traffic jam between the interchanges Salzburg and Golling-Abtenau reached an impressive length of 28 kilometers in the morning, and between the junctions Pongau and Flachau also some 20 kilometers. The Karawankenautobahn (A11) and the Fernpass Straße (B179) were also badly hit.
According to Aloisia Gurtner, spokeswoman for the ÖAMTC Salzburg, a lot has happened in the wider area of Salzburg since the nighttime hours: “Since Friday evening people have been driving uninterrupted, there has not been a phase in which the traffic has decreased noticeably.” The drivers from Bavaria would have taken up to three hours longer over the Walserberg and then to the Tauerntunnel. The mega traffic jam, as experienced in 2019, only came about on Saturday afternoon, but the drivers kept coming to a stop – one reason for this are several construction sites on the Tauernautobahn. Some motorists ignored the barriers.
28 km long sheet metal avalanche
According to ARBÖ’s Christina Hönigl, the result on the A10 was up to an hour lost in each traffic jam. “After moderate disturbances in the morning, the stop-and-go on the Tauernautobahn reached a length of up to 28 kilometers between the interchanges Salzburg and Golling-Abtenau around 10:20 am, which also resulted in a loss of time of up to an hour in southern direction.”
There were also delays on the western motorway (A1) between the state border Walserberg and the Salzburg interchange, on the Inntal motorway (A12) towards the A13 Brenner motorway, and on the A13 near Innsbruck and the Munich trunk road ( B155) between the border of Freilassing and the Lieferinger Spitz. A bottleneck was again the Fernpass road (B179) where progress from the north was slow. Motorists left for up to 70 minutes between the Vils/Füssen border tunnel and Bichlbach.
Karawanken tunnel as bottleneck
On the Karawankenautobahn (A11) in Carinthia, the traffic jam stretched early in the morning from the Rosegg gas station to the border with Slovenia, making it some twelve kilometers long. The waiting time for the Karawanken tunnel when leaving the country was more than an hour.
For German sunbathers, the test of patience started before entering Austria: there were miles of traffic jams and long waiting times on the German A8 towards the Salzburg interchange. On the Rosenheim-Innsbruck connection, progress on the A93 over a distance of 24 kilometers was difficult, resulting in a loss of 30 minutes.
According to ÖAMTC spokeswoman Gurtner, Pentecost has developed into one of the busiest travel weekends. While summer weekends used to be the busiest, Pentecost is now the start of summer travel. However, she expects a lot of traffic until September this year.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
