Life is still in danger.

An uncontrolled, lateral falling of the bridge pillar in the dilapidated southern half of the Salzbachtal Bridge cannot be ruled out even six weeks after the closure.

In the meantime, the bridge bearings that were still in place have been secured with concrete cushions and a steel corset made of red auxiliary supports has been erected.

But that's not enough to remove the 50 meter safety zone around the bridge.

Oliver Bock

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis and for Wiesbaden.

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Another corset made of shotcrete is required for emergency stabilization of the pillar, and it has to harden for some time, according to the Autobahn GmbH.

Instead of the end of July, the building is not expected to be approved by an external test engineer until mid-August.

Then finally experts can inspect the bridge directly and not just from a safe distance.

And only then can the blast holes be drilled.

Evacuation concept necessary

As a result, the start of the long-awaited new building is delayed further. Originally, according to Autobahn GmbH, the bridge was supposed to be secured within two weeks so that the preparation for the demolition, estimated at six to eight weeks, can begin. This preparation includes protecting the main sewage treatment plant, railroad tracks and other infrastructure with large amounts of sand. A demolition date was planned in early or mid-September. Now it should be four weeks later. Until then, all buildings in the area will be examined in order to be able to determine any damage after the big bang without any doubt. Because a safety distance of 250 meters must be observed during the blast, an evacuation concept is also necessary. The blasting concept itself is not yet known either, it was previously consideredfirst to bring down the south bridge and then to lay the north bridge over it.

The demolition will be the event of the year for Wiesbaden. An event with which the suffering commuters have high hopes. Only then can the new construction of the south bridge begin, for which the experts are optimistically estimating only one year. An unusually short period of time that Alexander Pilz from Autobahn GmbH would not bet on. But the foundations of the new bridge have already been laid, and parts of the new steel bridge have already been pre-assembled. The new north bridge should then also be built with as little distance as possible.

The fact that a bridge that opened in 1963 is so dilapidated after less than 60 years that it is about to collapse before the already planned renovation begins is still a matter of debate in the state capital. The Salzbachtal Bridge, which was then designed for 20,000 vehicles a day, was built as part of the so-called southern bypass. Wiesbaden moved closer to Frankfurt via the Rhein-Main-Schnellweg, the A66. However, around 20 years after it was opened, the bridge had to be reinforced for the first time due to the increasing traffic load and again in 2010. At that time it was already considered a problem child for engineers, and it was already clear that the bridge would not be able to cope with the loads for long would. A new building was planned, but it was not publicly announced until 2017. At that time, it was assumed thatthat the two three-lane bridge halves would be demolished in 2023 and rebuilt with four lanes.