Commuters used to using the East Gate at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, should be prepared for traffic disruptions later this week.
Beginning Thursday morning and running through mid-January, the base’s East Gate — closest to Kaiserslautern via the Einsiedlerhof exit off Autobahn 6 — will be closed for construction of new force-protection measures.
Traffic will be routed through Harmon Gate, which is just beyond the main gate, said Erin Zagursky, chief of media relations for 435th Air Base Wing public affairs.
People entering Ramstein from the Kaiserslautern area can still use B-270 from B-40 into the base, Zagursky said.
Outbound traffic will exit Ramstein through the gate near the Services Auto Recycling Center — known as the “junkyard gate” — near Arnold Circle, she said.
The West Gate, considered the main base gate, near Ramstein, handles the majority of traffic and will not be affected, Zagursky said. It’s impossible to know if the changes will cause traffic complications, she added: “It’ll take a while to get used to it.”
About 40,000 Americans — active-duty and civilians — live and work near Ramstein, which is both the major U.S. military cargo air hub in Europe and headquarters for U.S. Air Forces in Europe.
