Historical Archive of the City of Cologne up at the site of the collapse (a large hole in the ground), where around 95% of all archival items could be held until August 2011, albeit scattered and in many cases badly damaged. Archive repositories all over Germany offered space to store the damaged and only roughly cleaned documents: wet materials were flash-frozen to prevent mold growth. "Itinerant archivists" worked in the receiving archives all over the country and began the task of re-identifying and re-cataloging. A newly installed centre for restoration and digitization on the outskirts of Cologne started working in 2011, with a total cost for restoring
Transport in Cologne German limited access highway ("autobahn") was opened in 1932 between Cologne and Bonn. Today, this is A 555. In 1965 Cologne became the first German city to be fully encircled by a beltway. Shortly after the Second World War reconstruction plans by, among others, Rudolf Schwarz called for a downtown bypass freeway (the ) as a centerpiece of rebuilding the city. These schemes were only partially executed though, due to opposition by environmental groups. The completed section became "Bundesstraße (Federal Road) B 55a" which begins at the "Zoobrücke (Zoo Bridge)" and meets with A 4 and A 3 autobahns at