Transportation Infrastructure Policy in Germany’s Federal System: Drivers and Challenges

Germany is not only famous for its high quality cars, but also for its Autobahn lacking a general speed limit. During the last century the regulatory framework, financial incentives and the infrastruc-ture built created a transportation system strongly favoring automotive transport and combustion engines. However, these policies generated many problems as well, most notably environmental pollution and traffic jams. But how can societies evolve away from the car and move towards more public transport? To an-swer this question, it is necessary to identify political factors hindering transportation transition. Since transportation is a multi-level policy, Germany’s federal system may be both a challenge and a driver for transportation transition. According to recent studies of federalism, German cooperative federalism is likely to inhibit policy change since joint decision making between the federal and state levels introduces a higher number of veto players into the political system. Scharpf famously labeled this phenomenon ‘policy interweaving’ (Politikverflechtung). In this way, German federalism may actually prevent transportation transition. On the other hand, self-rule in federalism enables states and municipalities to enact their own policies and hereby deviate from the current policy mainstream. This is especially true in the transport sector, were successful state or municipal transport projects may serve as living labs. Therefore, the main goal of this paper is to contribute to the analysis on the role of federalism in the context of the German transportation transition. Is German federalism inhibiting transportation tran-sition – or on the contrary, is it a chance for the transition? To answer this question, in a first step the contribution clarifies the different responsibilities of the federal, state and municipal level in the transportation sector respectively. In a second step, it elaborates the two mentioned aspects of German federalism into two hypotheses regarding a successful transportation transition. The first hypothesis is based on the policy-interweaving theory, assuming that policy interweaving creates the political conditions that consequently inhibit a policy transition in the transport sector. The sec-ond hypothesis is based on the assumption that federalism provides state and municipal actors with the necessary political leeway to enact policies in the first place. In the third step, these two hypoth-eses are tested regarding their plausibility in two case studies. The first case study deals with the Autobahn A14 between Magdeburg and Schwerin. This case illustrates under which conditions tra-ditional transport policies can prevail in German federalism. The second case study encompasses the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn, a tram-train system in the entire region that successfully broke with tradi-tional transport policies hence establishing the so-called ‘Karlsruhe model’. The study concludes with the discussion of the results highlighting the necessity of certain condi-tions under which transportation transition can be successful in Germany’s federal system.