is an

autobahn The (; German plural ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official German term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track'. ...

in southwestern

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

. It connects the

Taunus The Taunus is a mountain range in Hesse, Germany, located north of Frankfurt. The tallest peak in the range is ''Großer Feldberg'' at 878 m; other notable peaks are ''Kleiner Feldberg'' (825 m) and '' Altkönig'' (798 m). The Taunus range spans ...

Fulda Fulda () (historically in English called Fuld) is a town in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district (''Kreis''). In 1990, the town hosted the 30th Hessentag state festival. Histor ...

, passing close to

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian dialects, Hessian: , "Franks, Frank ford (crossing), ford on the Main (river), Main"), is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as o ...

. The first part of the autobahn between

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

and the

Nordwestkreuz Frankfurt The Nordwestkreuz Frankfurt is a cloverleaf interchange in Frankfurt. Here, the Bundesautobahn 5 ( Hattenbacher Dreieck - Frankfurt am Main - Basel) and the Bundesautobahn 66 (Wiesbaden - Fulda Fulda () (historically in English called Fuld) is ...

, was opened as early as 1934, then called the ''Rhein-Main-Schnellweg''. It became an autobahn in 1965. The autobahn is incomplete; there still is a gap within

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its ...

city borders. A

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

was proposed as a solution; however, this has not been implemented because of the high cost of construction. A new section of roadway to close a second gap southwest of Fulda was opened to traffic on 13 September 2014. The section includes a cut-and-cover tunnel and replaces a diversion which saw traffic routed onto the B 40 for approximately 9 kilometers before rejoining the A 66 just prior to the junction with the A 7; the new segment cost 154 million euros. A portion of the Kinzig Valley Railway line was also rerouted along the new autobahn segment, which required an additional 60 million euros. Near Frankfurt-Höchst, the highway is one of the busiest in Germany with an average of more than 130,000 vehicles per day.

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