Around 170 motorway bridges should be modernized by the end of the year; the goal was 400. The Ministry of Transport is not dissatisfied, but the BUND and the Federal Audit Office are. Why the discrepancy?
The Federal Ministry of Transport reports 157 bridges renovated in 2025, by June 2026 there were only 70, and another 100 are expected to be added by the end of the year, but this remains below the target of 400 bridges per year in the core network.
The ministry emphasizes the progress in the renovated bridge area, which covers around 1.34 million square meters from 2022 to June 2026, which corresponds to more than a third of the target.
Bridge expert Christian Ganz sees the need for renovation as significantly higher and criticizes the fact that current staff and company capacities are not sufficient to double the pace.
The BUND calls for funds to be redirected from new construction to renovation in order to be able to modernize the bridges in need of renovation by 2032 and criticizes the current implementation as inadequate.
It is not new that the number of bridges on federal highways being renovated as part of the bridge modernization program is currently stagnating. The Federal Ministry of Transport (BMV) is now disclosing the data for 2025 and 2026: 157 bridges were modernized in 2025. By June 2026 there were only 70, and another 100 are expected to be added by the end of the year.
Originally the renovation plans were more ambitious. As a reminder: In 2022, the then Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (now independent) announced that a total of 4,000 motorway bridges would have to be upgraded in the next decade. After an initial ramp-up phase, the goal was to modernize at least 400 bridges annually in the prioritized core network. Time for a mid-term review.
At around 7,000 kilometers, the core network covers just over half of the approximately 13,000 kilometers of motorway. In addition, according to the BMV, there are around 500 particularly urgent bridge substructures outside the core network on the task list for the first decade. The Federal Audit Office even estimates a total of 5,000 bridges. This number is also a conservative calculation.
The BMV's balance sheet from 2022 puts the expected need for modernization in the motorway network at more than 8,000 substructures. This includes half of the medium-urgent structures, i.e. around twice as many as listed in the core network.
The causes of the renovation backlog go back a long way. Bridge expert Christian Ganz names three basic problems that come into play in maintenance management. Many bridges were built between the 1960s and 1980s according to standards that no longer meet today's requirements for load-bearing capacity and reinforcement. It was only from around 1985 that the dimensions were considered sufficient.
“In addition, heavy goods traffic and especially axle loads have increased tenfold since the 1960s,” says the expert from Drees & Sommer. In addition to the motorway bridges in need of renovation, there are around 3,000 bridges on federal highways. Today the numbers could be even higher.
Back to the core network: The target of 400 bridges should have been reached for the first time this year. However, according to the BMV, it is already clear that this will not be achieved. The reason given by the ministry is the restrictions imposed by the provisional budget for 2025 and the fact that large buildings will first be renovated. “Because of the urgency, priority was given to starting with the large bridges, where modernization is of course more complex and takes more time than with small bridges,” explains a spokeswoman.
The ministry therefore prefers to calculate the renovated area. “The communication of the area is certainly not as easy to understand as the number of renovated bridges, but it is more meaningful,” says Federal Transport Minister Steffen Bilger.
In fact, the BMV is making comparatively faster progress on the area. “In 2025, around 217,000 square meters of bridge area were modernized,” says a BMV spokeswoman. This year it will be a little more: “For 2026, the aim is to have a modernized bridge area of 240,000 square meters.” By the end of June, 70,000 square meters had already been modernized.
This means that a total of around 1.34 million square meters of bridge area has been modernized (188 football fields), “i.e. more than a third of the target,” emphasizes the spokeswoman. The area is the sum of the renovations between January 2022 and June 2026.
Tim-Oliver Müller, managing director of the German Construction Industry Association, is optimistic about the numbers: “The modernization of bridges is making progress.” Autobahn GmbH is now renovating significantly larger and more complex structures than at the beginning of the program. The head of Autobahn GmbH, Michael Güntner, and Federal Transport Minister Bilger recently made similar statements.
Müller emphasizes the area that has already been renovated and praises the positive development in 2026. “Now it is important to maintain this pace and increase it further,” says the expert. “The construction industry has built up capacity for this.”
Bridge expert Christian Ganz, however, doubts whether these will be enough. “Compared to the planned number of maintenance measures as part of the federal and Autobahn GmbH bridge modernization program, the current maintenance measures have to be practically doubled,” he says.
“As of now, this is impossible because the financial resources, the personnel and the companies that carry out the whole thing are not sufficient,” says the engineer. There are currently not that many companies that carry out the necessary renovations or repairs.
If Müller from the Construction Industry Association is to be believed, the situation will soon ease: “More people are employed in bridge construction than in 15 years, and at the same time significantly more people are being trained again.” Companies are ready to build more bridges, but to do so they need “a reliable and continuous project pipeline”.
Many doubt that the efforts are enough, not least the Federal Audit Office. The environmental association BUND concludes that the implementation of the “bridge modernization network” by 2032 is on “shaky ground”. He accuses the BMV of using numbers games to disguise the pressure to act.
"The modernization of all highway bridges in need of renovation is likely to last until the 2040s or even 2050s. Anyone who wants to prevent this must reallocate investment funds and planning capacities from new construction," demands Jens Hilgenberg, head of transport policy at BUND.
With the new regulation on the creditworthiness of Autobahn GmbH, the legislator also leaves it open to dedicate the newly taken out loans to restructuring and thus give priority to preservation. This is the only way the renovation can be completed in the next ten to 15 years and further bridge closures can be prevented.
A look at the numbers shows how urgent this is: in 2024, the Federal Quality Association identified 43 motorway bridges with a length of more than 50 meters in “inadequate” condition. This means that stability, traffic safety or both are significantly impaired or no longer exist. “With a condition rating of 4.0, we are talking about inevitable closures,” explains bridge expert Ganz.
In the event of an unsatisfactory condition rating of 3.5, the BMV does not automatically see an immediate or short-term closure, but only a need for action. Ganz says that this already exists at 2.0 in the medium term, and from 2.4 even in the short term. In reality, however, in many cases trading is only done from 3.0 onwards.
Ganz points out that renovations are currently primarily damage-oriented. “At Drees & Sommer, on the other hand, we follow a life cycle-oriented approach: maintenance measures are planned and implemented at an early stage, i.e. before a construction agency is forced to act due to a poor condition rating,” says the engineer.
In this way, minor damage can be repaired before it causes high costs, additional personnel costs or traffic restrictions such as speed reductions and overtaking bans. Using specially developed software, the company creates forecasts “when measures are required on which structure”. In this way, conservation management can be made more plannable in the medium and long term.
But it is also clear to Ganz: “The damage that has already occurred can no longer be completely stopped.” The renovation must therefore continue at full speed. “The special fund now creates a better basis, but does not solve the structural problem,” says Müller from the construction industry. Reliable, long-term funds and long-term sustainable financing cycles are crucial. This is the only way to avoid further stop-and-go situations and to permanently accelerate bridge modernization.
Transport Minister Bilger is initially relying on loan financing from Autobahn GmbH. “This means that the situation with bridge renovations will improve again from next year, because the funds will now be available more reliably,” says the CDU politician. He leaves it open whether this also means the bridges outside the core network.
