The bridge has to go, at least that much is clear now. The rather dilapidated overpass of state road 2363 over the A 93 with its peeling blue railings, which has been connecting the two Upper Bavarian communities of Raubling and Brannenburg since the late 1950s, is allowed to remain standing for a while. Instead, the fresh gray steel lattice construction right next to it has to go, which has been spanning the autobahn for almost a year, but still looks brand new. No wonder a car has never driven over it. Although a single car probably wouldn’t have hurt.
Even a tank could have parked on the bridge, as a spokesman for the responsible federal highway company is happy to assure. In the long run, however, as the test engineer for the Autobahner had calculated, the constant vibrations caused by driving over it could become too much. So the temporary bridge has to go to make room for a new temporary bridge.
The good thing is that at least there is no need for a temporary bridge to demolish the temporary bridge. Because that can take over the old bridge, the one from the fifties. After all, it’s still there, the cars drive over it as ever. And even if it has long since been marked with an alarming orange dot in the official database of traffic structures: it cannot be demolished without an approved temporary bridge, because Raubling and Brannenburg must remain connected. A train runs there at most twice an hour, you can’t take the autobahn because you have to cross the bridge from Raubling to get on the slip road heading south, and over the other bridge near Aich it would be a good two kilometers further.
But now the Austrian construction group, whose problem is the whole thing, because the motorway company ordered a complete solution from him at a fixed price, has changed the temporary bridge supplier. The interim structure is to be replaced soon, after which the old bridge will be demolished and the new one should be ready by the end of 2023. After that, one could have crossed the A 93 at one and the same place within a year on four different bridges – if the current makeshift bridge had ever been passable.