Local German newspaper hna.de reports that a full renovation of a main road in a town in the state of Hesse is set to drag on for two years. The news sparked a lively discussion in the German-language Lemmy community c/dach over why public works projects in Germany are so extremely slow compared to other countries. Commenters pointed out that in Vietnam an entire city block could be built in two years, and questioned why the construction zone had car parking spaces but no bike lane — raising broader doubts about how infrastructure priorities get set.
“What you’re looking at right now is Germany” — one town braces for two years of a fully closed main road
Classic. These days they just slap up a closure sign without thinking twice — nobody bothers planning a detour. It'd be forgivable if the work actually got done fast, but it usually doesn't.
4Anonymous2026-08-21 09:27
Honestly, it's baffling why things always take this long in Germany. In other countries this would be a 2-3 month project, tops.
7Anonymous2026-08-21 09:13
And then a few years later you get a horrifying number of cracks in the structure, or worse. You see that in China too sometimes. Sure, construction here is way too slow, but that's not really the comparison you want to make.
9Anonymous2026-08-21 08:13
The gap in construction speed compared to other countries is honestly staggering. In Vietnam, two years is enough to build an entire residential block to move-in condition — here, that same amount of time (at minimum) just gets you one renovated main road……
11Anonymous2026-08-21 10:00
True, shoddy construction happens over there plenty too…… but here we've mastered the art of doing both — taking forever AND delivering poor quality……
12Anonymous2026-08-21 09:22
There's a street called 'Hauptstraße' (Main Street) in Berlin, Dresden, Karlsruhe, and Heidelberg too 😃
17Anonymous2026-08-21 09:24
Nah, Vienna has a population of 2 million and it still has a 'Hauptstraße' 😛
22Anonymous2026-08-21 08:49
If a 'town' only has one 'that main street,' isn't it basically just a village?
13Anonymous2026-08-21 10:29
Oh, the horror — imagine having to consider low-income people when planning traffic infrastructure (lol)
14Anonymous2026-08-21 09:52
Something's off here. There's room for 26 car parking spaces, but no bike lane — cyclists are just told to ride in traffic. On a main road, no less. What kind of priorities are these? I thought we'd moved past this kind of thinking by now.
18Anonymous2026-08-21 10:21
'What kind of priorities are these?' — that's literally what the article's headline says.
20Anonymous2026-08-21 10:29
Nah, mentally this place is still stuck right in the middle of the 1970s.
19Anonymous2026-08-21 10:19
15 parking spots…… well, I guess that's infuriating for a small town. But take it from me, you do not want to come to Hamburg. There's basically no way to walk around without dodging a maze of portable toilets and red-and-white construction fencing.
21Anonymous2026-08-21 11:34
Well, if the article says the road is only 6.5m wide, there really isn't room for a bike lane unless you make it one-way. Capping the speed limit at 30 km/h is genuinely a good idea (personally I think it should apply everywhere) — it cuts the risk of mixing cars and bikes. Routing cyclists onto a different street could also work, depending on the location. But that should be done by offering an attractive alternate route, not just banning bikes outright.
23Anonymous2026-08-21 10:20
Two of those are basically villages anyway. Even Berlin is pretty much just a bunch of villages stuck together.
Background and key points of this discussion
The complaint about “slow construction” here ties into a long-standing criticism of how slowly public works projects move in Germany. Major infrastructure projects like airports and railways often take years — sometimes over a decade — from planning to completion, and Germany is frequently compared unfavorably to countries that prioritize speed. That said, some commenters pushed back, arguing that speed and quality are a trade-off, so it’s not simply a case of “slow = bad.” Another key point is how road space gets allocated: the observation that there’s parking but no bike lane reflects a broader conflict playing out across Germany over the “Verkehrswende” (transport transition) — the shift away from car-centric urban planning. Note that “Hauptstraße” (Main Street) is an extremely common street name found in towns all over Germany, and the later tangent in the thread is really just poking fun at that.
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