Gürtel

The Gürtel is a substantial city road of Vienna. Running 13.1 km parallel to the famous Vienna Ring Road, it encompasses the inner city districts and follows the route of the former Linienwall outer fortification. The city's red-light district is situated around the Gürtel.The Gürtel was laid out from 1873 at the site of the former Linienwall fortification, built under Emperor Leopold I at the beginning of the 18th century to protect his residence from kuruc invasions in the course of Rákóczi's War for Independence. After World War I, the road became the construction site for several public housing estates in the era of Red Vienna. As in most parts of Austria-Hungary, vehicles formerly moved on the left, like in Britain, until after the Anschluss in 1938. According to German regulations, traffic in Vienna was redirected to pass on the right as elsewhere on the Continent. Plans developed in the 1960s and 70s to rebuild the Gürtel as a city motorway have never been carried out. The road, like the adjacent residential areas, is however strongly affected by the high traffic volume.

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