A final polish with the broom, a checking look around by the site manager before strong arms could push the remaining barges to the side of the road. Perhaps a small round of schnapps from the foreman for the road builders to toast the successful work. This or something similar may have happened on June 18, 1965: the final opening of the full circle around the Kaiserlei traffic circle. An event without ministers cutting a ribbon together with the Lord Mayors in front of cheering crowds, and without luxury cars in a long motorcade to add significance to the event. For the local media, the opening of Europe's largest traffic circle with a diameter of 250 meters was only worth a report on page five: a brief reference to another change in the traffic routing of a temporary solution. The fierce debate about raising the price of the "Stöffche" by five pfennigs per glass of cider seemed to be more important at the time.
Since 1957, the Hesse South Road Construction Office had been planning the central traffic junction in the east of the region in Kaiserlei, initially "only" as an intersection of federal highways. At that time, its surroundings were still "outside the gates" of Offenbach in an open field. Within a decade, the expressway from the east of Frankfurt to Langen and Darmstadt was to intersect with the connection from Frankfurt Sachsenhausen via Offenbach to Hanau at Kaiserlei.
While the planners were still drawing, the number of cars was increasing rapidly. In Offenbach, long queues of cars from the eastern part of the city were snaking along Dreieichpark towards Oberrad and Frankfurt at peak times. Berliner Strasse and the southern ring roads, today the backbone for through traffic, were only just being planned. The A 661 was not inaugurated until a decade later. And the Frankfurt city council waited until the end of the 1970s to expand Strahlenbergerstrasse on Deutschherrenufer. The federal, state and local authorities had to improvise in order to control the growing volume of car traffic. Every section, no matter how small, was opened as soon as it was completed, including the first sections of the Kaiserlei traffic circle.
Opening of the Kaiserlei Bridge
The traffic routing soon had to pass its first test, long before the traffic circle could finally be completely circumnavigated. On December 18, 1964, the then Federal Minister of Transport, Dr. Hans Christoph Seebohm, opened the Kaiserlei Bridge on the Frankfurt side in front of local celebrities from the entire region and numerous citizens in dense fog.
This bridge was not only the first section of the future highway in the direction of Darmstadt but also the central link from the east of Frankfurt across the Main to Offenbach. Of course, the lanes of the 220-metre-long five-arch overpass, which cost around 15 million marks (7.5 million euros), ended directly at the traffic circle, which had not yet been completed. A ramp took the cars down one level, so to speak.
In its early days, this traffic circle was a makeshift solution. Its missing north-western section made two-way traffic necessary. "The critical points" were quickly identified by road users and the media. On the exit and approach to Offenbach city center, which at that time still only led via the extended Goethestrasse, cars had to change lanes in three places and cross the road in the traffic circle. A major Frankfurt newspaper ran the headline: "Forced experiments on the Offenbach side". And in the fall of 1964, a Frankfurt journalist wrote after a drive through the excessive radii of the traffic circle: "The vehicle skids and will always skid". He sincerely hoped that this makeshift solution would soon disappear.
A traffic circle - as famous as it is infamous
But even after the traffic circle was opened on June 18, 1965, it was still the main accident blackspot in Offenbach. "The dream of glory that was associated with the European record of two hundred and fifty meters in diameter has been extinguished by the nightmare of road users," wrote the FAZ on 30 April 1970 with a touch of pathos.
As early as June 23, 1965, the Offenbach Post reported in its lead story "It had barely been round for fifty hours when things went wrong for the first time": a small truck from Frankfurt was carried out of the bend as it entered the traffic circle and crashed into a street lamp. A driver from Offenbach also skidded off the road and complained in the media about the amount of damage, which amounted to 700 marks (350 euros). Five similar accidents are said to have occurred during these hours. Two hundred minor and major accidents have been recorded from 1969, not including minor damage.
The media complained that the access road from Strahlenbergerstrasse to the traffic circle was too "sharp" and that the roads leading to it were too "short for normal speeds". The head of the Offenbach police force, Karl Weber, disagreed: "The entrance to the traffic circle from the direction of Frankfurt is completely safe if the traffic regulations are observed".
The Hessen-Süd road construction office responsible merely wanted to flatten the raised bends. Its spokesperson explained rather diplomatically: "Anyone who has an accident on the traffic circle is to blame". But after car drivers started sliding across the three central reservations in series, the authorities reacted almost frantically with signs restricting the speed from fifty to forty and a little later to thirty kilometers per hour. Speed cameras monitored the speed virtually around the clock. The Offenbach city council even considered an additional tunnel under the Rondell. However, the idea was probably lost in the sand of the Main, on which Offenbach is literally built
Bridge over the traffic circle
The frequency of accidents was only gradually reduced with each completed access road. At the beginning of September 1965, the connection to Berliner Straße, the newly constructed main road through Offenbach, was opened. On November 28, 1968, the section of freeway between the Taunusring and the traffic circle was opened and "toasted with champagne" by representatives from Offenbach, according to the Frankfurter Neue Presse. However, this highway-like route also ended at that time behind a steep descent in Kaiserlei at street level directly in the radii of the traffic circle.
The work was not completed until 17 December 1972, when the Hessian Minister for Economics and Technology, Heinz-Herbert Karry, together with Offenbach's Lord Mayor Georg Dietrich, opened a 380-metre-long bridge over the Kaiserlei traffic circle to traffic - one year earlier than planned.
"Yes, we're here on our bikes" came from the loudspeakers as the small escort with the officials drove towards the still virgin stretch of road. The bridge closed the gap between the Kaiserlei Bridge and the already completed roadway to the Taunusring and was therefore a section of the planned connection from Bad Homburg to Darmstadt, which today ends at Egelsbach.
The bridge led through traffic to a second level and thus relieved the traffic circle in the long term. Europe's largest traffic circle, which still seemed oversized to many people in 1964, has now reached its capacity limits again. The east of the region is booming with the arrival of the European Central Bank (ECB) on both sides of the Main. Today, the Kaiserlei is one of the top addresses in the region for services and commerce.
Development of the location
The two cities of Frankfurt and Offenbach have agreed to develop it together. Offenbach's population is growing. A new district for living and working is being created in the immediate vicinity of the port. Even in 2013, before the Honsell Bridge was completed at the intersection of the two core cities within sight of the ECB, 65,000 cars passed the traffic circle every day. An increase to around 94,000 vehicles is forecast.
The traffic junction is an important feeder road to Frankfurt Airport. In the 1960s, around 10 million passengers used the airport. Today, the figure is around 60 million. In future, a double intersection is to replace the traffic circle and take over its function. This will unbundle and equalize traffic towards the freeway and Offenbach. This will not only benefit motorists.
Offenbach will gain over one hectare of space for companies to settle. This is associated with jobs and tax revenue. The Kaiserlei traffic circle, with which the city of Offenbach holds a European record, will therefore end after little more than half a century as a minor episode in the city's thousand-year history.