Specialists will prepare a study of the bridge at Prague's Výtoň for free and hand it over to Kupka

Prague – The international design firm Cowi, along with architect Petr Tej, will prepare a feasibility study for the reconstruction of the railway bridge at Prague's Výtoň and will submit it to the Minister of Transport Martin Kupka (ODS) in February next year. Today and on Thursday, specialists will measure the extent of corrosion on the bridge. Tej and representatives of the company informed journalists of this. The Railway Administration (SŽ) wants to replace the bridge with a new one, which has sparked a wave of criticism. The minister confirmed that he will decide on the next steps by the end of the year.

SŽ announced an international architectural competition to resolve the poor condition of the bridge, the results of which were presented last year. The winning project plans to preserve the lower part of the bridge with the pillars and replace the current riveted structure with a new one. There has been a wave of opposition to this plan from residents, local politicians, and conservationists.

"It is necessary to preserve this structure in the panorama of Prague," Tej told journalists today. "Engineers from Switzerland and Great Britain from the design firm Cowi came to prepare a study that will be ready by the end of February. It will be handed over to Mr. Minister Kupka so that he can compare it with the study being conducted by Ata engineering," he added.

According to Tej, the project will also include a detailed budget and a comparison of both options, that is, the construction of a new bridge and the repair of the original one. "So far, we have only quickly gone over it to see what visible defects the bridge has. We will see how these deficiencies can be repaired, what their extent is, and how it affects safety," said David MacKenzie from Cowi. According to him, today the team will focus on the upper part of the bridge, namely the arch, which is most affected by corrosion.

"We are focusing on critical areas where the most significant corrosion losses are observable in order to obtain relevant data for proposing the ideal approach to the reconstruction of this iconic Prague bridge," added MacKenzie.

According to Tej, the repair itself would take one to two years. "Which is significantly shorter than the time required to build a new bridge, where just the permitting process will take several years," he said.

The association Nebourat, which disagrees with the plan to replace the current bridge structure with a new one, organized a petition that has been signed by over 20,000 people. The initiative also had an analysis prepared, which indicates that it is not necessary to expand the bridge to accommodate a third track, which is often mentioned as one of the reasons for replacing the bridge. SŽ and representatives of the capital city have disputed the analysis.

The railway bridge at Výtoň was opened on August 15, 1872. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, it was replaced by the bridge that spans the Vltava to this day. SŽ has managed the bridge since 2008, and it was declared a cultural monument in 2004. The monument status has been unsuccessfully attempted to be revoked by SŽ twice since 2010.