Take a look at the wide, gray asphalt expanse stretching out before you, split by a solid concrete median and spanned by metal pedestrian overpasses. This is the Kriegsstrasse. Some roads are simply ways to get from A to B, but massive urban arteries like this one are living symbols of unending urban adjustment, constantly being ripped up and reshaped as a city tries to figure out what it wants to be.
Originally, around the year 1800, this road was built outside the old city gates for a very practical reason. It was meant to route marching armies around Karlsruhe and keep the citizens safe. Hence the name, Kriegsstrasse, which translates to War Street. But as the city grew, the street was swallowed up by urban sprawl. By the 1960s, city planners transformed it into a massive thoroughfare that in some spots swelled to ten lanes wide, creating a concrete river that effectively sliced Karlsruhe in half.
If you view the app, you can see a picture of the Ettlinger Tor intersection back in 2012, giving you a sense of the sheer surface congestion before the city decided to intervene.
By the early two thousands, the traffic had become unbearable. The city devised a highly ambitious project called the Kombilösung, or Combined Solution. The grand idea was to bury the cars in a 1,400-meter underground tube called the Karoline-Luise-Tunnel, and turn the surface into a pleasant, tree-lined boulevard with a green tram track.
Digging a massive trench through the heart of a city is rarely simple, and this project met some remarkably stubborn realities. Construction kicked off in 2017, plunging the area into noisy chaos. Then, in July 2020, disaster struck. A massive water pipe ruptured. Two hundred thousand liters of water cascaded into the brand new tunnel and tram tracks. It ruined every single electrical cable in the subterranean tube, completely wiping out six months of progress.
They pushed forward, eventually scheduling a grand opening ceremony for May 2022. The formal invitations were printed and ready to mail. But during a final safety test, a massive ventilation rotor detached from the ceiling and crashed to the tunnel floor. Naturally, the tunnel failed its safety inspection. The grand opening was scrapped, the street remained a chaotic construction zone, and local businesses, already starving for foot traffic, had to endure several more months of noise until the tunnel finally opened late that October.
Today, the surface is indeed greener, though locals still debate if the new, slightly sterile streetscape actually feels inviting. And about that name, War Street. In 2022, a mysterious activist group called the Pudelmützenbande, or Bobble Hat Gang, took matters into their own hands. They pasted over the word War on several street signs, temporarily turning this massive road into Peace Street. The city quickly peeled the stickers off, but it gave everyone a good chuckle.
Speaking of peace, let us leave the bustling traffic behind. It is time to head toward a much quieter spot nearby. Let us walk over to the Church of Peace.
