Quietest stretches of Staatsstraße in Bavaria AI-pedia

In the German state of Bavaria, a Staatsstraße (state road, abbreviated with the prefix "St") is a secondary highway legally classified and funded by the Free State of Bavaria. The Bavarian road network comprises over 14,000 kilometres of Staatsstraßen, serving as the intermediate connective tier between the national federal highway network (Bundesstraßen and Bundesautobahnen) and local county roads (Kreisstraßen). While portions of this state-maintained network in metropolitan areas—such as the urban corridors surrounding Munich, Nuremberg, and Augsburg—carry tens of thousands of motor vehicles every day, peripheral portions of the network record exceptionally low traffic volumes.

According to the official traffic counts published by the Bavarian road administration (Bayerische Straßenbauverwaltung), the quietest stretches of Staatsstraße in Bavaria regularly record average daily traffic volumes (Durchschnittliche tägliche Verkehrsstärke, or DTV) below 200 motor vehicles per 24 hours (Kfz/24h). These segments are not distributed evenly across the state. Instead, they cluster in specific geographical and administrative environments: isolated border corridors along the Czech frontier in the Bavarian Forest (Bayerischer Wald) and Upper Palatinate Forest (Oberpfälzer Wald), high-elevation dead-end spurs terminating in the Bavarian Alps, and remote woodland passages through northern Bavarian upland ranges such as the Fichtelgebirge and Franconian Forest (Frankenwald).

The persistence of these ultra-quiet state roads highlights an ongoing tension within German transport infrastructure policy. Under state transport law, a highway must serve an inter-local, connective network function to justify state-level classification and funding. Roads that terminate at national borders, mountain hiking car parks, or forestry gates often lack through-traffic, transforming them from transit corridors into municipal access tracks or forestry arteries. However, administrative disputes, cross-border coordination obstacles, and municipal financial resistance frequently prevent their legal downgrading (Abstufung), leaving them on the state payroll as quiet anomalies.

Legal Framework and Road Hierarchy

Road classification in Germany is governed strictly by administrative law, which defines which tier of government must build, maintain, and pay for a given route. In Bavaria, this hierarchy is established by the Bavarian Road and Paths Act (Bayerisches Straßen- und Wegegesetz, or BayStrWG). The public road network consists of five primary functional tiers:

• Bundesautobahnen (BAB): Federal motorways designed exclusively for high-speed, long-distance motor vehicle transit.
• Bundesstraßen (B): Federal primary highways that connect major urban centres, regions, and international border crossings.
• Staatsstraßen (St): State highways that connect intermediate regional centres (Mittelzentren), link district capitals (Kreisstädte), or provide high-capacity connections to the federal network.
• Kreisstraßen: County roads (designated by the district abbreviation, such as "PA" for Passau or "OA" for Oberallgäu) that link individual municipalities within a rural district (Landkreis) to one another or to higher-ranking routes.
• Gemeindestraßen: Municipal streets, residential access roads, and rural agricultural tracks maintained by local towns and villages.

Article 3, Paragraph 1, Point 2 of the BayStrWG explicitly defines the statutory function of a Staatsstraße. According to the statute, Staatsstraßen are roads that "together with the federal highways, form a coherent, basic network and serve the purpose of handling traffic between regional transport nodes, or between these nodes and the higher-level network."

Because this definition legally requires a connective network function (Netzzusammenhang), a road that lacks through-traffic or fails to connect two population centres conflicts with the administrative purpose of the category. When a road segment loses its connectivity—due to border closures, changes in settlement patterns, or the construction of nearby bypasses—it is formally supposed to undergo a reclassification procedure known as Umstufung or Abstufung. In an Abstufung, the state transfers administrative and financial ownership of the road downward to either the local district (becoming a Kreisstraße) or the local municipality (becoming a Gemeindestraße).

Measurement of Traffic: The Straßenverkehrszählung

Traffic volume on the Bavarian road network is measured through the nationwide Road Traffic Census (Straßenverkehrszählung, or SVZ). This coordinated census is generally conducted every five years across all German federal and state highways. It is organised at the federal level by the Federal Highway Research Institute (Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen, or BASt) and executed within Bavaria by the Bayerische Straßenbauverwaltung, which operates under the Bavarian State Ministry for Housing, Construction and Transport.

Counting Methodology and Metrics

The SVZ gathers traffic volume data through two primary methods: automatic counting stations (Dauerzählstellen) and manual counting points (Manuelle Zählstellen). Automatic stations operate continuously throughout the year, using inductive loops embedded in the asphalt or overhead radar and camera sensors to detect vehicle presence, length, and speed. Because installing and maintaining automatic stations is expensive, they are primarily deployed on high-capacity corridors, autobahns, and major arterial Bundesstraßen.

The vast majority of counting points on rural and low-volume Staatsstraßen rely on manual counts supplemented by portable automated counters. Manual counting involves trained census personnel recording vehicles at specific times of day, spread across selected standard weekdays (Tuesday through Thursday), weekend days (Sunday afternoons), and vacation periods. These raw sample counts are then processed through mathematical calibration models developed by BASt, which account for seasonal variance, weather anomalies, and local school holidays to compute standard statistical indicators.

The primary metric generated by this process is the DTV (Durchschnittliche tägliche Verkehrsstärke), defined as the total number of motor vehicles traversing a specific road cross-section over an average 24-hour period across the entire year, expressed in vehicles per 24 hours (Kfz/24h). Two secondary metrics provide further structural detail:

• DTVw: The average daily traffic volume calculated exclusively across working days (Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays).
• SV-Anteil: The proportion of heavy goods transport (Schwerverkehrsanteil), which measures the percentage of vehicles exceeding 3.5 metric tons gross vehicle weight (such as commercial freight trucks, timber transporters, and buses) relative to the total vehicle count.

Network Baselines and Low-Volume Thresholds

To understand what constitutes an exceptionally quiet state road, the figures must be placed in context with state-wide averages. Across Bavaria, the median traffic volume for a Staatsstraße typically falls between 3,000 and 4,000 Kfz/24h. Peripheral rural segments that carry between 1,000 and 1,500 Kfz/24h are widely regarded by transport engineers as low-capacity rural roads.

By contrast, the lowest tier of Bavarian Staatsstraßen records DTV values beneath 300 Kfz/24h, with the most isolated sections falling below 150 Kfz/24h. In terms of vehicular flow, a DTV of 150 Kfz/24h translates to an average of roughly six vehicles per hour throughout the day, or one vehicle every ten minutes. During off-peak hours—such as mid-morning or late evening on an autumn weekday—these stretches can experience intervals of thirty to sixty minutes without a single passing motor vehicle.

Geographical Clusters of Isolated Staatsstraßen

Ultra-low-volume state roads are concentrated in regions where physical topography, natural barriers, or political boundaries inhibit human settlement and through-traffic. The counting data from recent census periods confirms that these routes consistently appear in three specific natural landscapes.

The Bavarian Forest and Bohemian Border (Bayerischer Wald)

The most prominent cluster of low-traffic state roads lies along the eastern edge of Lower Bavaria (Niederbayern) and the Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz), stretching along the border with the Czech Republic (historically Bohemia). This region is dominated by dense montane spruce and beech forests, rugged granite massifs, and the protected territory of the Bavarian Forest National Park (Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald) and the neighbouring Šumava National Park across the border.

Historically, this frontier was heavily impacted by the Cold War. Following the establishment of the Iron Curtain in the late 1940s, cross-border road connections between West Germany and Czechoslovakia were severed. Roads that had previously linked Bavarian valley towns to Bohemian market centres were blocked by concrete barriers, physical fencing, and guard outposts. Although the borders reopened following the Revolutions of 1989 and the subsequent accession of the Czech Republic to the Schengen Agreement in 2007, many secondary forest roads were never rebuilt to carry international through-traffic. Instead, strict conservation policies inside the national parks prohibited the construction of modern road connections.

Specific examples of quiet state roads in this region include:

• St 2130 (near Haidmühle and Bischofsreut): St 2130 traverses the extreme southeastern corner of the Bavarian Forest near the tripoint of Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. While the central portions of the road provide regional connectivity, dead-end branches and extreme peripheral spurs running toward ancient, non-commercial forest borders record extraordinarily low numbers. Certain monitoring sections deep within the woodland plateaus regularly record DTV figures between 100 and 220 Kfz/24h. The heavy goods share on these sections is dominated almost entirely by local timber extraction and forestry transport.
• St 2132 (Spurs near Finsterau and Mauth): The St 2132 runs from the interior of the Bavarian Forest toward the Czech frontier near Finsterau. The terminal forest stretches approaching the national park boundary and the pedestrian/cyclist-only border crossing at Bučina (Buchwald) see virtually no commercial through-traffic. On damp, off-season weekdays outside the summer hiking and winter cross-country skiing seasons, these forest corridors record negligible movement, sometimes dropping below 120 Kfz/24h.
• St 2154 (Upper Palatinate Border Segments): Further north in the Upper Palatinate Forest, along the ridges between Waldmünchen and Schönsee, several sections of St 2154 run directly adjacent to the international boundary. Because commercial freight operators rely on the nearby Bundesstraße 22 or Bundesautobahn 6 to cross the border at Waidhaus, these high-elevation forest roads serve only scattered hamlets and agricultural holdings, generating daily counts rarely exceeding 300 Kfz/24h.

On these border routes, daily life is characterized by deep silence. The dominant road users on weekdays are the delivery vehicles of the Deutsche Post, local dairy collection tankers, agricultural tractors, and forestry machinery belonging to the Bavarian State Forestry enterprise (Bayerische Staatsforsten).

Alpine Cul-de-Sacs and Mountain Valleys

A second distinct cluster occurs in the Bavarian Alps, primarily within the administrative districts of Oberallgäu, Ostallgäu, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and Berchtesgadener Land. The topography of the Northern Limestone Alps creates deep, glaciated valleys enclosed by vertical mountain massifs. Where these valleys terminate at the base of impassable rock walls, nature reserves, or the international border with Austria, the roads that serve them become geographic dead ends (Sackgassen).

Unlike the forest routes of the Bohemian border, Alpine state roads display extreme seasonal divergence in traffic volume. Their annual average figures (DTV) are pushed down by long periods of severe winter conditions and near-deserted off-season shoulder months, even if they experience short, intense spikes of tourist traffic on clear summer weekends.

Key Alpine low-traffic segments include:

• High Valley Spurs: In peripheral side-valleys of the Allgäu Alps (near Oberstdorf, Bad Hindelang, or Pfronten) and the Ammergau Alps, short state-maintained spurs branch off main transit corridors to service isolated communities, health clinics, or historical forestry lodges. If a spur terminates at a barrier prohibiting private vehicular traffic, access is restricted solely to residents, agricultural leaseholders, and emergency services.
• Approaches to Toll Roads and Trailheads: In regions such as the Berchtesgadener Land or the valley approaches to the Karwendel range, certain Staatsstraßen terminate at municipal or forestry parking facilities, from which access further into the mountains is possible only on foot, by bicycle, or via private toll roads (Mautstraßen). These road heads record almost no commercial goods traffic, resulting in heavy transport shares (SV-Anteil) consistently below 1.5 percent.
• Winter Closures (Wintersperre): Some high-elevation sections are subject to mandatory seasonal closures. Due to steep gradients, avalanche hazard zones (Lawinenstriche), and the prohibitive cost of snow removal, the road administration legally closes these segments between November and May. When a road is closed for five or six months of the year, its annual arithmetic DTV drops drastically, as the count during winter days is recorded as zero.

Northern Upland Ranges: Fichtelgebirge and Frankenwald

The third cluster is located in Upper Franconia (Oberfranken), specifically within the low-density plateaus of the Fichtelgebirge and the Franconian Forest along the former Inner German Border with Thuringia. Following the reunification of Germany in 1990, primary transport infrastructure was concentrated on modernising key east-west and north-south corridors, such as the Bundesautobahn 9 and the upgraded Bundesstraße 173.

Secondary state routes running parallel to these upgraded arteries, or threading through heavily forested, declining rural settlements, experienced significant traffic drainage. Isolated segments of roads such as St 2198 or St 2195 in the northern Franconian borderlands record daily volumes that fail to reach 400 Kfz/24h. These routes are marked by aging demographic profiles in surrounding villages, a lack of industrial employers, and a topography of steep hills and dense woodlands that discourages long-distance transit.

Comparative Traffic Data

The following table illustrates the variance in traffic volumes across different types of Bavarian Staatsstraßen, highlighting the quantitative divergence between ultra-low-volume routes and typical or heavily congested state highways. The figures represent typical ranges compiled from historical SVZ data and regional transport assessments.

Road Number	General Location / Characteristic	Approximate DTV (Kfz/24h)	Estimated Heavy Goods Share (SV-Anteil)	Primary Functional Character
St 2130	Bayerischer Wald (Bischofsreut / Czech border spur)	120 – 250	1.0% – 3.0%	Forestry, border terminus, local residential access
St 2132	Bayerischer Wald (Near Finsterau / Nationalpark perimeter)	140 – 280	0.8% – 2.5%	National park buffer, rural dead-end, hiking access
St 2154	Oberpfälzer Wald (Isolated crest sections near border)	220 – 450	2.0% – 4.0%	Inter-village connector, agricultural transit
St 2198	Frankenwald / Thuringian border margin	280 – 550	1.5% – 3.5%	Peripheral rural connection, forestry logistics
Alpine Spurs	Allgäu / Berchtesgaden (Cul-de-sacs with winter limits)	150 – 600 (Seasonal)	0.5% – 1.8%	Seasonal tourism, mountain farmstead service
State Average	Statewide median for all Bavarian Staatsstraßen	3,200 – 4,200	5.0% – 7.5%	Standard inter-district connectivity
St 2082	Munich Metropolitan Area (Suburban commuter corridor)	14,000 – 22,000	4.0% – 6.0%	High-capacity metropolitan arterial transit

Factors Producing Low Traffic Volumes

The existence of public highways with traffic counts lower than those of suburban cul-de-sacs is the result of four overlapping factors: structural geography, geopolitical history, nature conservation regimes, and administrative inertia.

Topology of Dead Ends (Sackgassenfunktion)

A standard highway generates traffic volume through network connectivity: drivers use it to travel from point A to point C via point B. When a road loses its outlet at point C, traffic collapses immediately to destination traffic (Ziel- und Quellverkehr). If the destination possesses almost no permanent population, no commercial employers, and no through-connection for motor vehicles, the only remaining traffic consists of individuals travelling to that specific terminus.

In mountain valleys and border forest crests, many Staatsstraßen terminate abruptly at:

• Physical barriers, such as steep Alpine ridges where road construction was never technically or economically viable.
• Forestry gates erected by the Bavarian State Forestry enterprise to prevent unauthorised vehicular intrusion into commercial timberlands.
• Hiking trail parking facilities where motor vehicle traffic is prohibited from continuing into protected parklands.
• International boundaries where the neighbouring state (the Czech Republic or Austria) chose not to construct a matching paved road on its side of the frontier.

Conservation and Environmental Restrictions

The creation of large-scale nature reserves—most notably the Bavarian Forest National Park in 1970 (expanded in 1997) and the Berchtesgaden National Park in 1978—substantially altered regional transport planning. National park statutory regulations mandate the preservation of natural processes and explicitly seek to minimise noise, vehicle emissions, and habitat fragmentation.

When the national parks were established, roads that previously carried unrestricted traffic through the forests were permanently closed to public motor vehicles, closed at night, or restricted exclusively to authorised park service vans and regional public transit shuttles (such as the Igelbusse in the Bavarian Forest). The Staatsstraßen leading up to these park boundaries were thus severed from the broader regional network, instantly reducing their volume from regional corridors to environmental buffer routes.

Socio-Demographic Decline

Many ultra-quiet state roads lie within structurally weak, rural areas (strukturschwache Räume) that have suffered decades of demographic aging and youth out-migration (Abwanderung). Towns along the northern and eastern fringes of Bavaria experienced economic stagnation throughout the late 20th century. As small farms consolidated and local timber mills closed, the baseline daily movement of local residents diminished. With fewer schools, fewer retail shops, and declining local populations, internal inter-village traffic on secondary roads dropped correspondingly.

The Administrative Conflict: The Reclassification Dispute (Abstufungsstreit)

The continued existence of Staatsstraßen carrying fewer than 300 Kfz/24h is a subject of ongoing administrative and legal friction between the Bavarian State Government and local municipal authorities.

The Financial Burden of Road Ownership

Under German public law, the legal owner of a road—known as the Straßenbaulastträger (highway maintenance authority)—is legally obligated to pay for all regular maintenance, structural repairs, clearing, and winter services on that road. For Staatsstraßen, this burden is borne directly by the Free State of Bavaria, managed through regional State Construction Offices (Staatliche Bauämter, such as those located in Passau, Landshut, Kempten, or Bayreuth).

Maintaining a mountain or forest road is expensive. Severe winter weather causes repeated freeze-thaw cycles that break up asphalt pavement, requiring frequent resurfacing (Deckensanierung). In addition, roads running through mountainous terrain require expensive civil engineering structures, including:

• Concrete retaining walls (Stützmauern) to prevent slope failure.
• Drainage culverts and stream bridges that must be inspected and repaired under strict federal engineering standards (DIN 1076).
• Rockfall barriers, wire netting, and avalanche deflection structures.
• Extensive winter road clearance (Winterdienst), including snowploughs and the application of salt or grit.

The Downward Transfer Mechanism

Because these roads no longer fulfill the legal definition of a Staatsstraße under Article 3 of the BayStrWG (lacking an inter-regional connective function), the Bavarian road administration frequently attempts to execute an Abstufung. Under this process, the state attempts to downgrade the route to a Kreisstraße (making the rural district financially responsible) or a Gemeindestraße (making the local municipality financially responsible).

Local municipalities almost invariably resist these downgrading efforts, frequently launching administrative lawsuits before the Bavarian Administrative Courts (Bayerischer Verwaltungsgerichtshof). Rural municipalities in regions like the Bavarian Forest often have small tax bases and low administrative capacity. If a small municipality with fewer than 2,000 residents is forced to take over ownership of a four-kilometre dead-end mountain road featuring two decaying concrete bridges and a failing retaining wall, the resulting repair costs can bankrupt the municipal budget.

"An administrative downgrade cannot be imposed arbitrarily upon a municipality if the road infrastructure in question possesses structural defects that would impose a disproportionate and unjustifiable financial liability upon the local community without adequate compensatory funding from the Free State."
— Summarised legal principle frequently invoked in Bavarian municipal road reclassification litigation.

To legally execute a transfer against the will of a local authority, the state must prove that the road has demonstrably lost its network function. Furthermore, the state is generally required under administrative convention to bring the road into a state of "good structural repair" (ordnungsgemäßer Bauzustand) before transferring it downward, or to offer a substantial one-off cash settlement (Ablösesumme) to offset future maintenance liabilities. Because the State Construction Offices themselves face constrained budgets, projects to repave low-volume dead ends solely to prepare them for transfer are often deferred. As a consequence, the roads remain in administrative limbo: legally classified as state highways, paid for by the state, but operating at traffic levels below those of local residential alleys.

Physical Characteristics and Operational Realities

The quietest stretches of Bavarian Staatsstraße display distinct physical and operational traits that set them apart from standard European highways.

Road Cross-Sections and Design Standards

Modern German state highways are typically constructed according to the guidelines for rural road design (Richtlinien für die Anlage von Landstraßen, or RAL). These guidelines prescribe standard cross-sections with paved roadway widths of 6.0 to 7.5 metres, supplemented by stabilized unpaved gravel shoulders (Bankette), engineered drainage ditches, and central longitudinal lane markings.

By contrast, ultra-low-volume border and mountain Staatsstraßen frequently preserve historical, sub-standard alignments dating from the mid-20th century or earlier:

• Narrow Profiles: Pavement widths often narrow to between 4.0 and 5.0 metres. In some extreme peripheral forest sections, the pavement is barely wide enough for two private cars to pass at low speed without dipping their outer wheels onto the unpaved shoulder. When two large vehicles meet—such as a snowplough and a timber truck—one vehicle must come to a complete stop or pull into an unpaved passing turnout (Ausweichstelle).
• Absence of Markings: Due to the narrow cross-section, these roads often lack a painted centreline marking (Zeichen 295 or 340). In many cases, edge lines are also omitted, leaving only bare asphalt bordered by natural turf, forest moss, or drainage channels.
• Substandard Geometry: Radii of horizontal curves are frequently tight, reflecting historical horse-drawn cart tracks that were simply paved over with tarmac during the post-war modernisation era. Sightlines are often severely restricted by rock cuts, mature forest canopies, and rolling vertical crests.

Acoustic Environment and Sensory Profile

From an acoustic perspective, these quiet corridors represent rare sensory environments in Central Europe. The German Federal Emission Control Act (Bundes-Immissionsschutzgesetz) and the associated 16th Federal Emission Protection Ordinance (16. BImSchV) govern environmental noise standards for transport routes. On typical German arterial highways, continuous ambient noise levels (Mittelungspegel, or Leq) regularly exceed 60 to 70 decibels (dBA) during daytime hours.

On the quietest stretches of the St 2130, St 2132, or high Alpine spurs outside peak holiday periods, the ambient daytime noise level drops below 35 to 40 dBA, approaching the baseline acoustic noise of a natural landscape without human intervention. The predominant sounds are natural: wind moving through mature spruce canopies (Picea abies), mountain stream runoff, birdsong, and insects. When a motor vehicle does pass, the acoustic intrusion is sharp, distinct, and audible from several kilometres away, followed by an immediate return to natural silence.

The visual environment is similarly characterized by an absence of commercial and visual clutter. Standard commercial transport infrastructure—such as illuminated service stations, digital traffic message signs, sound barriers, large directional gantry signs, and roadside advertising hoardings—is entirely absent. Signage is typically limited to small, historical enameled or reflective aluminium directional panels indicating hiking destinations, local municipal boundaries, and basic regulatory warnings (such as deer-crossing hazard symbols or gradient warnings).

Maintenance Policies and Winter Service Priorities

Because traffic volumes are minimal, the Bavarian State Construction Offices assign these routes to the lowest maintenance operational tiers. Road maintenance depots (Straßenmeistereien) operate according to prioritized winter response plans (Winterdienst-Dringlichkeitsstufen):

• Dringlichkeitsstufe I: Primary transit arteries, commuter highways, and high-volume school bus routes. These roads are cleared continuously, with snowploughs deployed in pre-dawn shifts starting at 03:00 to ensure clear asphalt before morning rush-hour traffic.
• Dringlichkeitsstufe II: Secondary rural links, cleared after primary corridors are secured.
• Dringlichkeitsstufe III: Low-priority rural routes, cul-de-sacs, and ultra-low-volume spurs. Stretches with DTV figures below 300 Kfz/24h fall into this category. They are cleared late in the morning, only after the core regional network is fully passable.

On certain deep forest spurs along the Czech border, winter service is intentionally curtailed to a "white maintenance" regime (Weiße Räumung). Rather than applying chemical de-icing salts to dissolve snow down to bare, wet asphalt—which is ecologically damaging to roadside streams in protected nature reserves—the snowploughs merely compress and scrape the top layers of snow, leaving a hard-packed snowpack (Schneedecke). Motorists travelling these routes in January and February must drive directly on packed snow and ice, requiring winter tyres with deep tread or the application of snow chains.

Future Outlook and Ecological Role

The long-term trajectory of Bavaria's quietest Staatsstraßen remains tied to shifting transport and environmental priorities. As fiscal pressures mount on state infrastructure budgets, the Bavarian Supreme Audit Institution (Bayerischer Oberster Rechnungshof, or ORH) periodically criticises state expenditure on non-essential, low-capacity roads. The ORH regularly recommends accelerating the transfer of dead-end state roads to local authorities to eliminate unnecessary administrative overhead.

Conversely, environmental and conservation organisations increasingly view these isolated road corridors as valuable ecological and recreational assets. The complete lack of heavy traffic and low overall vehicle movement makes them far less lethal to native wildlife than standard transport corridors. In the Bavarian Forest, these roads intersect the territory of strictly protected animal species, including the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), the European wildcat (Felis silvestris), and the Western capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus). On roads carrying thousands of vehicles per day, wildlife mortality rates are high and animals are deterred from crossing, creating severe ecological barriers (the barrier effect, or Zerschneidungseffekt). On quiet stretches carrying only 100 to 200 vehicles spread across 24 hours, wildlife can cross with minimal risk of vehicle collisions, particularly during the critical dawn and dusk foraging hours.

Furthermore, these quiet stretches are increasingly integrated into non-motorised tourism initiatives. With the rapid expansion of electric bicycles (e-bikes) and gravel cycling, dead-end state spurs and quiet border roads have become popular cycling routes. Because they are legally public state roads, they are maintained to a higher engineering and clearing standard than rough gravel forest tracks, while providing cyclists, hikers, and silence-seeking tourists with an environment free from the noise, exhaust, and danger of mainstream vehicular traffic.

See also

• Bayerische Straßenbauverwaltung
• Bayerisches Straßen- und Wegegesetz
• Bayerischer Wald National Park
• Berchtesgaden National Park
• Durchschnittliche tägliche Verkehrsstärke
• Inner German border
• Iron Curtain
• Road hierarchy
• Straßenverkehrszählung