The repair of the footbridge over the Morava River in Kroměříž will be carried out by a company from Brno

Kroměříž - The renovation of the pedestrian footbridge over the Morava River in Kroměříž will be handled by the Brno company Mitrenga - stavby. This was decided by the city councilors. The company will start the work later this year, and, weather permitting, it should be completed by March 30 of next year. The city hall expects the footbridge to open in the spring, with renovation costs amounting to approximately 6.9 million crowns. Jan Vondrášek, the spokesman for the Kroměříž city hall, announced this today.

The footbridge has been closed since last December for safety reasons. The city leadership took this action after a footbridge built in a similar manner collapsed in Prague-Troja. Experts subsequently determined that part of the supporting cables of the footbridge in Kroměříž has been damaged by corrosion, requiring its reconstruction. Due to the closure of the footbridge, pedestrians must currently use the Karl Rajnoch Bridge, which is about 500 meters away.

In the near future, builders will reinforce the current structure of the footbridge with external prestressing cables made of specially protected prestressing strands, which will be anchored behind the original abutment. "The cables will cross under the footbridge and support it from below," stated Lambert Hanzal, the head of the city hall's service department. Work will be carried out according to the project documentation prepared by experts from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Brno University of Technology (VUT).

According to Ladislav Klusáček, who led the VUT expert team, the key issue is the corrosion damage to the supporting cables on one side of the footbridge, resulting from poor quality during construction. Some cables on the other side of the footbridge are also damaged. However, according to the conclusions of the VUT team, the footbridge can be repaired; it is not in a catastrophic state like a similar footbridge in Nymburk in the Central Bohemian Region, which was demolished.

The footbridge in Kroměříž was built in 1984. It is 76 meters long, with a supporting structure length of 63 meters.