Bundesautobahn 40 (translates from German as Federal Motorway 40, short form Autobahn 40, abbreviated as BAB 40 or A 40), (named A 430 until the early 1990s) is one of the most used Autobahns in Germany. It crosses the Dutch-German border as a continuation of the Dutch A67 and crosses the Rhine, leads through the Ruhr valley toward Bochum, becoming B 1 (Bundesstraße 1) at the Kreuz Dortmund West and eventually merging into the A 44 near Holzwickede.

This article needs additional citations for verification. (December 2021)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Bundesautobahn 40]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|de|Bundesautobahn 40}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick Facts A 40, Route information ...

A 40
Bundesautobahn 40
Route information
Length	94 km (58 mi)
Major junctions
West end	Straelen A67 border with  Netherlands
East end	B 1 in Dortmund
Location
Country	Germany
States	North Rhine-Westphalia
Highway system
Roads in Germany Autobahns List Federal List State E-roads
← A 39 → A 42

Close

It has officially been named Ruhrschnellweg (Ruhr Fast Way), but locals usually call it Ruhrschleichweg (Ruhr Crawling Way) or "the Ruhr area's longest parking lot". According to Der Spiegel, it is the most congested motorway in Germany.

In the city of Essen, a Stadtbahn service operates on the median of the A 40 between Tunnel Ruhrschnellweg and Mülheim-Heißen. Between the Essen-Huttrop and the Essen-Kray junctions, there is a guided bus system called Spurbus.

• Ambach, Markus, ed. (2010). B1-A40: die Schönheit der grossen Strasse / The Beauty of the Grand Road (in English). Berlin: Jovis. ISBN 9783868590777.

• Bundesautobahn 40 – detailed route plan (in German)