The Bridge Story

 I live in a small urbanized village (4,000 residents) on the outskirts of Wiesbaden.  If you took the end-road...it'd leave the village, go over a hill, and in two miles....arrive at the next village (four grocery operations, a railway station, etc).  Most everyone in the village I live in.....uses this alternate town for their grocery needs (we just have one marginal grocery in our village).

For years, this town did nothing much over the main 'drag' that you'd use to enter the village.  You'd describe it as the crappiest street in existence.  It reached a point where they had to decrease the speed limit (from 50 kph to 30 kph) because of the potholes or marginalized pavement.  To make this point, they even put a blitz camera up (antagonizing the visitors a great deal).  

Last year, they shut down this one-mile street for around seven months....doing some major repaving project and fixing what had been going on for at least a decade.

The shut-down?  Well....it left you with a convoluted way to reach the heart of this town.  Oh, and they added another blitz camera to make this even more 'fun'.

The pavement project?  It finally got done about six months ago.

But three months ago, they closed down the main drag again.  

They decided that this one railway bridge needed to be re-asphalted and renovated.  Money thrown into this job?  Well over 1.5-million Euro....for a 300 ft long bridge over three tracks.

Things went fine until this week. 

After having spent a fair amount of money on the asphalt and renovation work....maybe 70-percent done with the overall project....some guy went under the structure and looked at the support column.

The bridge is no longer connected to the column....it's damaged...to the point of failure. It simply rests upon the column.  

An inspector comes out, certifies the bridge as non-useable.  In fact, you can't even run a train under it....triggering a massive mess for the railway folks (the train now only stops in the village, it can't continue the path under the bridge, to Wiesbaden or Frankfurt).  Some bus service runs from the village over another hill....to the next nearest train station.  On any train commute, it's added 15 to 20 minutes to your ride.

Kids using this train-connection for schools in Wiesbaden?  I would imagine four-hundred kids were riding the rail service each morning....to reach their school.  

The million-odd Euro for the paving and renovation work?  Flushed down the toilet....gone. Why this wasn't noticed before?  Unknown.

The topic now?  Well....the mayor came up and said he wants the bridge torn down asap.  The state needs to funnel up capital to tear this down, and put a new bridge up.  Just planning this dismantling job?  Probably three months minimum.  New bridge design and the project itself?  You can figure 18 months minimum.  

This main drag into the heart of the town?  As much as you can laugh about the last two years....you got at least two more years of uselessness to endear.  

This is one of those issues that I point out about Germany today....so much of it is Lego-pieced and integral piece/parts are over sixty years old.