A drawbridge will lead to the seat of the Liberec Region

Liberec - A bridge will lead from the Regional Office building in Liberec across the Nisa River, which can be raised in case of high water. Its construction will cost the region 20 million crowns, but the opposition argues that this is an unnecessarily spent amount. According to some sources, the impetus for the construction was the visit of President Václav Klaus, who was surprised that his limousine did not drive up to the entrance but to the parking lot. This is reported by today's Liberec supplement of Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD).
    A new bridge over the channel of the Lužická Nisa in U Nisy Street will be built at a location where just a few dozen meters away, another bridge for cars entering the regional office parking lot stands. It is also separated from the pedestrian footbridge by a few dozen meters in the opposite direction. "This is an absolutely redundant investment. Building something like this doesn’t really make sense," said councilwoman Eva Kočárková (SOS) to the daily.
    The regional leadership has included the bridge in this year's budget, and the opposition was unable to remove the project from the list of anticipated investments. It will be built by the company Brex, which won the public tender with a price of nearly 20 million crowns excluding VAT. According to regional office spokesman Jiří Langer, the price includes not only the bridge itself. "This amount covers both bridge spans, the relocation of sewage, and ground adjustments on both banks as well as lifting mechanisms on both spans," said Langer. The bridge should also improve access for firefighters.
    Construction is expected to start within a month. According to project author Karel Novotný from the company Sial, the new bridge will provide a more dignified entrance to the regional office building than previously. "The shape of the bridge is derived from the shape of the entrance object of the existing building, and the double bridge allows vehicles to overtake in confined conditions in front of the regional office," Novotný stated. According to him, the bridge will serve pedestrians with the possibility of access for authorized vehicles.
    The bridge will be a lifting bridge, which can be raised by 1.7 meters in case of flooding. The lifting mechanism will significantly increase costs: approximately five million crowns. The crossing has been in preparation for some time - the original project from the 1970s planned a bridge spanning approximately 100 meters and the creation of a kind of square in front of the building. "Unfortunately, that didn’t materialize, and at this time it would no longer be feasible in terms of maintaining the free profile during a hundred-year flood," said the architect.