Bridge Story

Back around four years ago in the Wiesbaden-Mainz region.....with a massive bridge-building project underway near the west end of the urban zone (next to the old Schierstein bridge).....a five-star accident occurred underneath the old bridge. 

The plan by the construction crowd was to build the replacement bridge just 'inches' away from the old bridge.  It made sense in terms of the location and design. 

Well...some member of the construction crew 'bumped' the column holding up the old and yet still vastly used bridge.  The new bridge?  It was two years away from completion.  Well over 100,000 cars transited this old bridge daily, and it's one of only three bridges in the whole Wiesbaden-Mainz area, with the Rhine dividing the two communities.

All 'hell' broke loose as the shut down traffic and did an inspection of the bridge worthiness.  In simple terms, your time to cross the river suddenly had an entire hour to two hours added.  Around three to four months later when they'd done support support work and allowed limited use of the bridge....everyone was hyped-up and frustrated with mess. 

Even to some degree today, with people still waiting on the completion of the new bridge....traffic is slowed and people still think about that simple little 'bump' on the column.

So why bring this story up?  About a mile away, on the Wiesbaden side of the river....connected to A66 (the autobahn)....there's this four-lane bridge (Salzbachtalbrucke).  It doesn't cross a river but it crosses another road underneath.  Again, more than 100,000 vehicles cross this daily.  Renovation was going on around this bridge for the autobahn, and as you might suspect by this point in the story......another work-crew member screwed up the stability of a column.

Yes, they've shut down the four-lane situation, and allowing only one-lane for each direction. 

Yes, it's triggered in the past 24 hours.....massive traffic staus (traffic jams), and people are again getting peppy and frustrated.

Yes, there's talk of weeks...maybe months....of work to strengthen the column and to make this bridge safe again.

This is one of the issues of living around the Wiesbaden-Mainz area.  For an area (the metropolitan region and the outlying area)....there's well over one-million residents, and the traffic design is of a marginal design.  Alternate routes don't really exist, and bottle-necks are a day-to-day event.