New safety measures required on two Dresden bridges

After special inspections following the partial collapse of the Carola Bridge in Dresden, two bridges in the city center are partially closed because additional safety measures are required there.

Three new cracks up to 27 centimetres long were discovered on the Nossen Bridge in the south-west of Dresden's city center, according to the city. As a result, two of the four lanes are expected to be closed in December and preparations are underway. Due to the temperature, the repair of the cracks cannot begin until April.

The weld seams on the steel structure where the new cracks were found were only renewed shortly before the special inspection at the end of October. The Nossen Bridge, which was completed in 1964, is in a severely damaged condition. A completely new construction is planned, with work due to start in mid-2026.

Budapester Straße bridge to get new monitoring system

There will also be temporary restrictions on the Budapester Straße bridge, which crosses the Deutsche Bahn tracks near the main railway station. In addition to the existing so-called fiber optic strain measurement, an acoustic monitoring system - called acoustic emission measurement - will be installed there. For this purpose, the bridge will be closed in one direction per day during the coming weekend.

The Budapester Straße bridge, which was built in 1967, is a prestressed concrete bridge, just like the Carola Bridge, which partially collapsed on the night of September 11. Immediately after the collapse, the city initiated a special inspection and extended the metrological monitoring. A scheduled inspection was last carried out in February.