is connected to the railway by a station at the Gotha–Leinefelde line, opened in 1870. There are some regional express trains to Göttingen and to Zwickau/Glauchau (via Gotha, Erfurt, Weimar, Jena and Gera) running every two hours and some local trains to Leinefelde and Erfurt (unlike the express via Kühnhausen), running every one to two hours. Former local railway connections to Sondershausen in the east and Treffurt in the west were discontinued. Mühlhausen is the largest city in Thuringia without a direct connection to the Autobahn. The Bundesautobahn 4 near Eisenach is to the south and the Bundesautobahn 38 near Leinefelde is to the north. The connection to the city is via the Bundesstraße 247 (which is the most important route) to Leinefelde in the north and Bad Langensalza (with further connection to Erfurt and Gotha) in the south, the Bundesstraße 249 to Eschwege in the west and Sondershausen in the east and secondary roads to Bleicherode in the north, Eisenach in the south and Küllstedt in the north-west. Municipal traffic is mainly via the ring road along the inner city walls, where the load is high on the eastern side at Kiliansgraben. Therefore, a bypass road east around Mühlhausen is in planning to keep the transit traffic out of the city. This is part of a larger set of measures to improve the connections of Mühlhausen by extending the B 247 between Leinefelde, Mühlhausen and Bad Langensalza. The next local airport is the Erfurt-Weimar Airport, approximately to the south-east and the next major airport is the Frankfurt Airport, approximately to the south-west. Biking is getting more and more popular since the construction of quality cycle tracks began in the 1990s. The Unstrut Trail and the Unstrut-Werra Trail are long-distance biking trails. Both connect points of touristic interest, the former along the Unstrut river from the Eichsfeld north-west of Mühlhausen to the Saale river near Naumburg, the latter on an abandoned railway track through the Hainich hills from Mühlhausen to Treffurt in the Werra valley. The Mühlhausen tramway network was established in 1898 and discontinued in 1969. Since that time, there has been a bus network for local transport within the city and to neighbouring communities. Education There are two Gymnasiums in Mühlhausen: one state-run and one Protestant. There was a school of education in Mühlhausen until 1990, when it was merged into the later University of Erfurt. Politics Mayor