A Viennese woman with a plot in the allotment garden site "Sonnenschein" complained to the Austrian Ombudsman Board about the noise pollution caused by the A23 motorway ("Südosttangente"). The allotment garden association (KGV) is located not far from the Prater junction / Handelskai junction, which is the busiest road in Austria with 220,000 vehicles per day. In addition to the woman, three thousand other residents of the "Sonnenschein" housing estate, the "Ober dem Heustadlwasser" and "Grünland" housing estates as well as the residents of the apartment blocks at Wehlistraße 303 and 336 in Vienna's 2nd district are also affected. There is a strong desire among those affected for the existing noise barrier to be raised quickly, but the planting of trees for noise protection would also be conceivable. An alternative measure would be the installation of noise protection windows; however, the noise would make it impossible to use the garden. As a large international long-distance bus terminal is also planned nearby at Handelskai, the noise pollution will not be reduced.
A noise report by ASFINAG, which took into account the forecasts for traffic up to 2037, came to the conclusion that the noise pollution is undisputedly present. It was clearly above the maximum noise limits of 60 dB during the day and 50 dB at night set for federal roads. One of the noise protection measures planned at the Prater junction is therefore to raise an existing noise barrier from three to five metres. However, ASFINAG's planning is itself dependent on lengthy approval procedures, for example in accordance with the Vienna Tree Protection Act, Nature Conservation Act and Forestry Act - implementation of the measures is therefore not realistic before 2031.
Although the Austrian Ombudsman Board cannot scrutinise the outsourced company ASFINAG, it can check whether ASFINAG is correctly monitoring compliance with the Ministry of Transport's "Instructions for noise protection on existing federal roads": Ombudsman Christoph Luisser criticised the fact that the Ministry of Transport and ASFINAG are apparently not adhering to their own guidelines, otherwise the raising of the noise barrier should have already been carried out as part of the renovation work in the "Prater Hochstraße" section, which has been under construction since autumn 2024. "Noise barriers in the Pfarrgasse industrial area in the 23rd district are comparatively three times as high as those at KGV Sonnenschein in the 2nd district and even 13 metres high along the southern motorway between Wiener Neudorf and Biedermannsdorf. In earlier projects, it had already been promised that the noise barrier would also be raised, but this was apparently forgotten. Something urgently needs to be done here, and sooner than 2031," said the Ombudsman. He would be happy to report back on new developments, said Ombudsman Luisser.
The noise barrier next to the south-east bypass is not due to be raised until 2031.