Institutional Change in Old Industrial Areas – Lessons for ... - UMAR

4.3.2 Traffic Infrastructure
Regarding traffic infrastructure, road and rail projects have been speeded up during
the 1980s.
For better regional “incoming” and “outgoing”, the accelerated construction of the A9
Phyrn motorway brought lasting improvement for Upper Styria.
In the north-western direction an important connection to agglomeration in Upper
Austria and Southern Germany was installed, where only a little gap is still under
construction.
In the south-eastern direction, the centre of Graz and the state of Slovenia were
connected through the A9 Phyrn motorway.
Installed speedways mainly along the river valleys Mur and Mürz brought an
important North-South connection between the metal-processing centres in Upper
Styria. Northerly, the speedway S6 Semmering towards the agglomeration of Vienna
brought access to the A1 West- and A2 South motorway. Heading South, the
speedway S36 Murtal connects Knittelfeld and Zeltweg with the main traffic routes.
Rail infrastructure projects included the “Junction Upper Styria” for higher speed and
capacities and a double-tracked extension of the “Schoberpass”, a mountain pass
connecting Upper Styria with Upper- and West Austria and South Germany. A further
project, the “Semmering Tunnel”, connecting Upper Styria with Lower Austria for
higher speed and freight capacity, is under preparation.
4.4 Improved Information Flow
To describe the information flow between regional actors and relevant institutions, it
must be noted that the provincial industrial policy is only partly “bottom up” and
dependent on national policy as well. Despite political tensions, the federal and
provincial levels have to cooperate and following “division of labour” can be seen:
• Research and most of the technology policy is mainly federal policy,
• Firm related support (e.g. investment subsidies, training etc.) is mostly provincial
regional policy,
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