New two-storey bridge to be built in Budapest at the scene of Sziget Festival

According to recent news, Budapest might receive one or even two new bridges. The former mayor of Óbuda has posted some of the concept images of the new bridge on his Facebook profile on the 26th of April. This is great news as both the commercial bridges leading to Hajógyári Island are in urgent need of an upgrade.

The Hajógyári Island has been home to the Sziget Festival, one of the largest music and cultural festivals in Europe. Currently, there are two possibilities to get to the island. One of them is the K-híd or K bridge, which is probably more known as it is used as the main entrance to Sziget Festival. Between the two bridges, this is the older one and was built in 1955 from the sections of a rapidly deployable military bridge. It was supposed to connect the shipyard, from which the island gets its name, via railway. You can see the track that has since been covered in asphalt. The bridge is a single-lane vehicular and footbridge.

The other bridge is the Hajógyári Híd (bridge) or H bridge for short. This is the second bridge leading to the Hajógyári Island and is the younger of the two; it is a reinforced concrete bridge built in 1968. It has a larger capacity than the K bridge and has an important role in executing the Sziget Festival as this is how all the equipment, gear, and anything else gets on the island. Both of the bridges could really use some modernisation or at least some way of taking some of the load off them. It is exactly what the new plans seem to achieve.

According to Index, the concept of the new bridge next to the current H bridge is an unusual design as it will be a two-storey pedestrian and cyclist bridge.

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It is aimed to directly connect the dreamed pop-cultural centre of the island with the Fő tér (Main square) of Óboda, while the street level of the bridge would lead to the Eszterházy embankment. This is the concept you can see in the rendered images.

Besides the fact that it is going to be a two-storey bridge, the other interesting thing about this concept is that it is going to utilise a piece of the old Összekötő vasúti híd (Southern Connecting Railway Bridge) which is located right next to Rákóczi Bridge and recently underwent some modernisation.

 “We investigated the reusability of the elements of the Southern Connecting Railway Bridge […]. First, we looked at whether the elements can be used for pedestrian and cyclist loads and the answer is yes. The second question was where could the elements be used […],” Dávid Vitézy, the executive officer of the Budapest Development Center, told Index.

The other aim is to look into the possibility to completely replace the older, single-lane K bridge with a similar reused element and thus upgrading it to a two-lane bridge that would be able to multiply the bridge’s capacity.

Reusing the elements of another bridge is not only environmentally friendly, but it is also 20-30% cheaper than building an entirely new bridge.

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Featured image: Facebook

Source: Index.hu