The repair of the Barrandov Bridge in Prague will take longer than expected. The reason is the worse condition of the cantilevers, i.e. beams, on the edge of the bridge. The exact date of completion of the repairs has not been set yet, but it is still true that the reconstruction will be finished this year. The deputy mayor Zdeněk Hřib (Pirates) and the deputy director of the Technical Administration of Communications (TSK) Josef Richter announced yesterday. Originally, the repairs were supposed to be finished by the end of the summer holidays.
TSK announced in mid-May that it would not meet this deadline. Now, according to Hřibo and Richter, the date of completion of the repairs has been further delayed, contrary to expectations in May. The reason is that solving the problem with the cantilever was more complicated than the road workers had anticipated.
The Barrandov Bridge is made up of two bridges, a southern one, which is used by cars travelling in the direction from Smíchov to Braník and has already been repaired, and a northern one, which is used in the opposite direction. The bridge from 1983 has not yet been completely repaired. Every day, 140,000 cars cross it, making it the busiest road in Prague.
“We came before you about a month ago and announced that new serious circumstances had emerged which could not be identified in advance and which made it necessary to develop a new technical solution to repair the Barrandov Bridge. It seems that the bridge will indeed still be repaired this year, even though there will be delays,” Hřib said yesterday.
In the spring, road workers discovered that the cantilever on the edge of the bridge had bent during the concrete pouring and that the original concrete was in very poor condition. “We were looking for an engineering solution to save the cantilever and move on. So we’ll support the cantilever so it doesn’t bend,” Richter said.
Workers need to significantly strengthen it and drill anchors into the original concrete as well as string rebar. “The existing concrete reinforcement is very thick and we have to drill ten times to drill one anchor, it’s very demanding. You drill and re-drill and you have to go back because the anchors are up to 400 millimetres long and it is tedious to repeat the drilling. There are 90,000 wells in total,” Richter said.
Exactly when the bridge repairs will be completed, Hřib and Richter did not say. They said it will depend, among other things, on the weather or further progress in determining what condition the bridge is in. Hrib said they now know that the northern section is as dilapidated as the now-repaired southern section of the bridge was.
The traffic measures are unchanged. That means drivers are using three lanes instead of four on the bridge in both directions. The entrance ramp from Strakonická Street is closed for the sake of fluidity and drivers in this direction have to use the turning ramp at Lihovar.
Source: CTK
Photo: Barrandov Bridge before reconstruction – Porr
