Waalbrug

51.8515535.871184Koordinaten: 51 ° 51 ' 5.6 " N, 5 ° 52' 16.3 " E

F1

Away Provinciale 325, Bicycle and pedestrian

Waal

The Waal Bridge at Nijmegen (Dutch Waalbrug bij Nijmegen) spans in the Dutch city of Nijmegen, the Waal, the southern arm of the Rhine in the Rhine- Meuse delta. The road bridge connects the center with the district Lent on the river's northern shore. In the 1931 to 1936 built building in the Provinciale way N325, the 9 leads north to Arnhem and in a southerly direction from the border as the main road to Kleve runs. The bridge is located at km 25.67 of the Dutch waterway 101 (Rhein- Waal - Merwede - Boven - Beneden- Merwede -Noord ) ( Rhine km 883.50 ). The next bridge upstream is about 30 kilometers away, Rhine bridge Emmerich. The next road bridge downstream is located about 10 kilometers to the west in the municipality of Beuningen.

Specifications

The steel arch bridge has a total length of 604 meters and is in the middle 65 meters high. The truss arch have a width of 12 meters, while the bridge deck is 23.5 meters wide. The sheet of the current bridge, where the underlying road surface is fixed to hangers, without resting tension band on two piers. The span of the main bridge is 244.1 meters. At the opening it was the largest span of an arch bridge in Europe. The four approach spans, of which span the middle 72 and the outer 95 meters were constructed with overhead roadway. The four pillars taper upwards. They are longer than the width of lying in the road and were provided at their ends with half-round, tower-shaped platforms. All pillars are covered with dark, rough-hewn stone blocks. At the two ends of the building is completed with two concrete arch as an abutment. To perform a bus lane on the bridge, the road on the west side was widened by 1.30 meters. Thus, the local tower platforms were lost. The original railings are no longer present. The color of the main arc was originally green, he is painted with white paint since 1980. Due to its architectural and cultural-historical significance to the Waal Bridge Rijksmonument (No. 523 067 ) has been declared.

History

By 1936 there were in Nijmegen for the road no fixed link across the Waal. Instead, we used the river crossing has always been a ferry that carried the name Zeldenrust later. For the trains of the railway Arnhem -Nijmegen, a railway bridge was opened in 1879 further downstream. From 1906, the Committee Nijmegen Vooruit ( German Nijmegen forward) planned to build a road bridge over the Waal. After the outbreak of the First World War, however, did not come to build. Planning a Waal Bridge at Nijmegen was resumed in the late 1920s from Brugg Bureau Rijkswaterstaat. The Dutch Ministry of Transport under its planning office was established to promote the construction of road bridges across the great rivers of the Rhine- Meuse delta.

The design of the Waal Bridge was modeled on Dutch and German steel arch bridges under the supervision of the engineer P. Stelling, in collaboration with the architect G. Schoorl and the chief engineer WJH Harmsen. The Dutch engineering company Werkspoor took over the assembly of the structure. On October 23, 1931 could be started with the construction of the bridge. On 16 June 1936, the building was officially opened by Queen Wilhelmina of the presence of 200,000 spectators. In honor of the photographer and entrepreneur CAP Ivens, who has done much in advance for the construction of the bridge, designed by Charles Estourgie Bank was inaugurated during the celebrations at the nearby Hunnerpark.

During the Second World War, the bridge played an important strategic role more than once. During the attack of the Wehrmacht to the Netherlands in May 1940, the main arch was blown up by the Dutch military. Then the bridge was repaired by the German occupiers, so that she could be driven from 1943 again. When the Wehrmacht withdrew during Operation Market Garden, the bridge was to be blown up again. This was common lore According prevented by the Dutch resistance fighter Jan van Hoof, by making the explosives useless. A commission set up in 1951, however, came to the conclusion that some of the explosives were still intact when British troops captured the bridge on 20 September 1944. It is believed, therefore, that the Wehrmacht the bridge ultimately did not want to blow up in order to use them in case of a possible counteroffensive can. A device fitted on a pillar railing of the bridge plaque commemorates the resistance fighters van Hoof.

The bridge is still one of the most important crossing of the Waal represents a traffic survey in 2005 revealed that more than 50,000 vehicles daily roll about the building. On the bridge form several times a day -long traffic jams. To relieve traffic congestion, a western ring and another bridge is downstream planned in Nijmegen. Construction is expected to be completed by end 2013. Subsequently, the Waal Bridge an overdue renovation to be subjected.

More

The Waal Bridge at Nijmegen in several scenes of the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far produced as well as in computer games Brothers in Arms: To see Frontline: Hell's Highway and Medal of Honor. On 15 July 2006, a protester of the organization Fathers For Justice climbed onto the bridge. On 2 October 2008, asylum seekers climbed the building to protest against his deportation. In both cases, the bridge was temporarily blocked, which had several jams in the surroundings.