Elsen Bridge

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Coordinates: 52 ° 29 ′ 45 ″  N , 13 ° 27 ′ 47 ″  E

B96a Elsen Bridge
Elsen Bridge
The Elsen Bridge
use Road traffic
Convicted Bundesstrasse 96a
Crossing of Spree
place Berlin-Friedrichshain
construction three-span prestressed concrete bridge in two separate bridge superstructures
overall length 185 m
width 34.6 m
Longest span 65.0 m
Clear height 4.25 m
vehicles per day 1,990 trucks
51,400 vehicles
start of building 1966
completion 1968
opening 4th October 1968
location
Elsen Bridge (Berlin)
Elsen Bridge

The Elsenbrücke in Berlin is a road bridge that opened in 1968 and connects the two districts of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and Treptow-Köpenick . It was named after Elsenstrasse , which originally led up to the bridge. Upstream there are two more bridges in addition to the Elsenbrücke, the Oberspree ring railway bridge for S-Bahn and long-distance rail traffic and the Parkweg bridge for pedestrians. Significant damage to the structure was found in the summer of 2018, so the bridge is demolished and is expected to be rebuilt by 2028.

location

In the district of Alt-Treptow the Elsenbrücke joins the street An den Treptowers , originally part of the continuing Elsenstraße. On the Friedrichshain side it runs towards the intersection between Stralauer Allee , Markgrafendamm and Alt-Stralau street . The new road bridge, built from 1964 to 1968, cuts through the area of ​​the Osthafen on the Friedrichshain side. The port's former power station is on the east side, while the rest of the port is on the west side. The Elsenbrücke forms the eastern border of the area of ​​the Mediaspree investor project , which extends to the Jannowitzbrücke in the west .

history

Stralau Bridge - forerunner of today's Elsen Bridge

The first bridge that connected Alt-Treptow with Friedrichshain was a railway bridge for the new connection line, which later became the ring line, which opened in 1871 . The suburban lines of the ring or city railway opened around 1915 led to a double iron bridge during the extension of the Oberspree ring railway bridge, which is included in the Berlin list of monuments. Both are differently curved, single-arched iron constructions that have since been renovated several times and are still in use. When the bridge was expanded in 1914–1921, it received an additional two-meter-wide footbridge on the east side, which was available to pedestrians and cyclists and led from Stralau directly into Treptower Park .

A road connection across the Spree was not considered necessary for many years. For this purpose, there was the underground test tunnel between Treptower Park and the Stralau peninsula from 1899 , which was created in connection with the Berlin trade fair in 1896. The tunnel was used by trams until 1932 and quickly brought Berliners looking for relaxation to Treptower Park or Plänterwald . In 1936 and 1937, the tunnel was opened to pedestrian traffic during the Olympic Games and the 700th anniversary celebrations in Berlin, and it was used as an air raid shelter during the Second World War . Damaged by bombs, the tunnel filled with water at the end of the war and has been unused since then, and parts of it have also been filled up.

Elsen Bridge in 1968

A first 210 m road bridge with a total of 540 m long road bridge on a wooden substructure was built in 1951 to the east of the ring railway bridge , the Stralau Bridge . It was intended to establish a connection to the southeastern districts of the Soviet sector and to make crossing the American sector largely superfluous. 430 piles 12 to 16 meters long were driven into the floor of the Spree. The width of the carriageway was 9 meters, the load capacity 12 tons. The road surface consisted of reinforced concrete slabs on which asphalt was laid. After a construction period of seven months, the bridge was inaugurated on July 20, 1951. Because of its numerous wooden yokes, Berliners also called it the “millipede”.

The construction of the Berlin Wall interrupted the original connection from the Berlin city center to the south-eastern districts via Schlesische Straße / Puschkinallee, as the Kreuzberg district in West Berlin could no longer be crossed. This fact and the strong increase in traffic required an efficient new Spree crossing in Treptow. An ideas competition finally delivered the plans for the construction of today's Elsen Bridge. In June 1964, the foundation work began on the new road bridge, which was built to the west of the ring railway bridge and at some distance from the wooden structure that is still in use. The bridge, inaugurated in October 1968, is an important link between Berlin city ​​center and Berlin-Schönefeld Airport . The old Stralau bridge was removed in 1970.

The Elsenbrücke is being renovated.

From 2020: demolition and new construction necessary

Decades of use of the Elsenbrücke had caused damage to the roadways, the waterproofing and the abutments. Between 2006 and 2009, the Senate Department for Urban Development therefore had extensive renovation work carried out, which led to significant traffic disruptions.

Finally, in the summer of 2018, additional new damage was discovered: cracks on the underside of the bridge in the eastern part. For example, on August 31, 2018, the Senate had the south-north lanes completely closed to motor vehicle traffic.

The bridge construction engineers are now ruling out repairs, which is why the Senate decided at the beginning of November 2018 and announced that the Elsen Bridge must be demolished. To this end, a temporary bridge with two lanes will be built by 2022 and when it is completed, the old bridge will be gradually removed. The northwestern superstructure of a new Elsen bridge is to be completed by 2025, the entire bridge probably not before 2028 at the earliest.

Technical data (selection)

The three- span structure made of prestressed concrete consists of two parallel, separate bridge superstructures, the mean length of which is 185 m. The largest field spans 65 m and is around 4.25 m above the water level (clearance height), the side fields each span 45 m. The total width of both bridge superstructures is 35 m. In terms of construction, it is a haunched girder bridge .

According to the construction diary evaluated in 2018, the 512 prestressing steels (strands) stored in the tension box from the Hennigsdorf steel and rolling mill were not concreted 14 days after their installation, as required by the standard - but rather more than six months later. This allowed moisture to accumulate and attack the steel. The experts consider this to be a major cause of the crack formation - in addition to the use of potash-containing gravel for the concrete - in 2018.

Sights near the Elsenbrücke

View from the Elsenbrücke downstream. On the left you can see the Molecule Man sculpture and on the right the Osthafen

Immediately behind the Treptower Park S-Bahn station is the berth for the Stern and Kreisschiffahrt excursion boats . This is followed by Treptower Park with the Archenhold observatory and the Soviet memorial . On the west side of the bridge on Treptower Ufer, the sculpture Molecule Man protrudes from the Spree, and on the bank you can see the Treptowers , which were built in 1998 on the grounds of the Elektro-Apparate-Werke Berlin . On the Friedrichshain side is the disused Osthafen, whose listed building is gradually being used for newer uses. The historic pump house of the port is right by the bridge.

literature

  • Eckhard Thiemann, Dieter Deszyk, Horstpeter Metzing: Berlin and its bridges . Jaron Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89773-073-1 , pp. 100-101.

Web links

Commons : Elsenbrücke  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Traffic volumes for trucks in 2014 . Road traffic census 2014 as of October 16, 2015 (pdf)
  2. Traffic volume map DTV 2014: vehicles in 24 hours
  3. Decision made: Elsenbrücke will be demolished on www.tagesspiegel.de.
  4. Monument complex: Oberspree ring railway bridge with embankment wall
  5. A thousand wooden feet. on fhzz.de.
  6. Christian van Lessen: The Elsenbrücke becomes a bottleneck . Article in the Tagesspiegel of December 22, 2007; Retrieved March 27, 2009 .
  7. Gerhard Lehrke: Elsenbrücke in the direction of Ostkreuz closed due to crack on the underside . Article in the Berliner Zeitung (online edition), August 31, 2018; accessed on August 31, 2018.
  8. Jörn Hasselmann: Decision made: Elsenbrücke will be demolished .
  9. a b Peter Neumann: Ready for demolition . In Berliner Zeitung , November 21, 2018, p. 9 (print edition).
  10. ^ Ulrich Paul, Peter Neumann: Elsen and Mühlendamm Bridge - demolition. The Berlin bridge chaos continues . Berliner Zeitung , (online edition), November 22, 2018.
  11. Replacement of the Elsen Bridge. Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection, accessed on January 6, 2020 .
  12. Information according to Structurae.
  13. Monument complex: Osthafen