Video of travel in the former East Germany in 1985

[cpzilliacus]

A quick reconnaissance of the available Google StreetView imagery for this length of Reichsautobahn in Poland shows that at least one carriageway still has the original 1930's half cross-section and Portland cement concrete pavement, except in isolated places where blowouts and other pavement failures have been repaired with asphaltic concrete.  In most places the other carriageway appears to have been reconstructed to the more modern half cross-section that is used for Polish motorways.  This location is typical:

A18 near Dolnoslaskie, Poland

This looks - a lot - like the original Portland cement pavement of federal part of the Baltimore Washington Parkway.  It's still there, just covered by several layers of asphalt pavement now, but was exposed as part of the rehabilitation job of the late 1980's and well into the 1990's. 

To Americans now, and even back in the 1930's and 1940's when the US was pioneering its own freeways, this seems like sheer lunacy, but at the time the Germans thought it would be sufficient to apply a legal duty to pastoralists to ensure that their animals never wandered onto the Autobahn.  I am not sure when the fencing was erected (presumably by the Polish highway authorities), but in some locations it is so close to the traveled way that I suspect at least some of it encroaches on the clear zone.

Sweden will sometimes post signs that warn VILTSTÃ,,NGSEL UPPHÖR (wildlife barrier ends) along its highways and even motorways. 

Example:


Not a good thing to strike a moose, though there are other critters in the Nordic nations for motorists to be concerned about avoiding on the highways, including deer, caribou and wild pigs.

[Alps]

All discussion about East Germany vs. east Germany has been removed. East Germany is a political entity, and this photo was clearly taken in Poland, formerly part of the eastern region of Germany, and not East Germany. Any further attempt to dispute this fact will lead to admin sanctions. Now, continue on topic.

[NE2]

God damn Stasi.

[Road Hog]

God damn Stasi.

They caused so much pain for such third-rate apparatchiks.

[agentsteel53]

What you all seem to know about a country you have barely seen from inside. It's amazing.

What did we get wrong?

a perhaps questionable thread resurrection, but I for one would really like to know the answer to this question.  it appears that - apart from a brief discussion on stone sett - this discussion didn't go anywhere.

as someone who spent his first 5 years behind the Iron Curtain (born in Hungary, visited several of the others) I have a particular interest in this topic.