Farewell to the 61-year-old reinforced concrete bridge on the M7 motorway

Since the beginning of May, motorists heading towards Lake Balaton have been greeted by the sight of the new pedestrian and cycle arch bridge, now open to traffic, on the M7 motorway near Velence. Following the opening of this spectacular crossing, designed by Főmterv Zrt., the old bridge was also demolished: our newspaper reported in detail on the operation, which took place at night over two weekends in May

The developer has now MKIF Magyar Koncessziós Infrastruktúra Fejlesztő Zrt. has published a summary video of the successive stages of the project, right up to the demolition.

The video, released as the latest instalment in the ‘Mi a Pálya’ series of development documents, highlights two reasons for replacing the bridge:

• on the one hand, repairing the old, outdated reinforced concrete footbridge, built in 1966, would have been more expensive than building a new bridge;
• On the other hand, following the widening of the M7 motorway, due to start next year, the three-lane motorway would not have fit beneath the old bridge.

As we mentioned in our report, the demolition work required the coordinated and precise efforts of nearly a hundred specialists. The work was assisted by a total of three specialised cranes: one with a lifting capacity of 650 tonnes and two with a capacity of 400 tonnes each. This was necessary because the two smaller sections of the bridge weighed 46 tonnes each, whilst the section between the two supports weighed 96 tonnes.