The UFO restaurant and SNP Bridge in Bratislava. (source: SITA - Andrea Mezeiová)
Last month, a bridge in Baltimore, United States, collapsed after a cargo ship struck one of its pillars, resulting in six dead and more than a thousand tonnes of steel lost to the sea and leaving bridge engineers stunned.
If a boat were to hit Bratislava's Most Apollo and Starý Most bridges, it is very unlikely that such an event would seriously endanger them. Of the six Danube bridges in Bratislava, only Most SNP bridge does not have a pillar in the river.
"River boats have much smaller tonnage, on average up to 27,000 tonnes, compared to ocean ships which weigh approximately 100,000 tonnes," says Rudolf Ároch, head of the Department of Steel and Timber Structures of the Slovak University of Technology. According to him, the pillars of Bratislava bridges are strong enough.
According to the expert, when it comes to bridges, the bigger concern is age and little investment in them.
"The generation of post-war bridges is nearing their end, in many cases built with inadequate technologies and the quality is not high," says Ároch.
Former transport minister Pavol LanÄŤariÄŤ said last year that if the state does not invest more in their repair, most bridges will be inadequate by 2031. In Bratislava, SNP Bridge is in the worst condition.
Almost half the bridges crumbling
Based on the data collected between 2005 and 2021, of the 128 bridges located in the Bratislava Region, almost half are in poor or very poor condition.
The data shows that over 16 years, the number of bridges in very good condition has fallen from 18 to 0 and the number of bridges in good condition from 64 to 15. Conversely, the number of bridges in poor condition has risen from 4 to 23 and those in very poor condition from 0 to 27.
