by Snezana Ilic
In everything that man pushes by
his vital instinct, builds and raises, nothing is more beautiful or more
precious than bridges. Bridges are more important than houses, more sacred
because they are more useful than temples. They belong to everybody and they
are the same for everybody, always built in the right place in which the major
part of human necessity crosses, more durable than all other constructions and
they do not serve for anything secret or bad.
Using those words the Yugoslavian
writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, Ivo Andric, explained
his ardor for bridges almost 50 years ago.
 |
| The Sava Bridge, Belgrade, Serbia |
A few months ago, when I saw the newly built bridge on the Sava River in
Belgrade, Serbia - I felt the same
enthusiasm. The bridge is standing proudly and waiting to be officially opened
for traffic in December 2011, aiming to become the new symbol of the city.
The necessity of the bridge is
clear having in mind that the city is situated on the constellation of two
rivers, the Danube and the Sava, and has 1.7 million residents with only two functioning bridges across the
rivers to connect the old part of the town (The Old Belgrade) and the new one
which stands for business center (The New Belgrade). Furthermore, the bridge
represents the missing element of the The Inner Major Half-Ring (UMP) that connects Western and Northern part and
much larger area of the city.
However, the opponents of this
construction were very loud in the years before the building started. Many
architects stated that this bridge would present physical danger, and it would
be unsuitable to build a main road through the city core which would give to
the residents of Belgrade an enormously expensive and dysfunctional bridge in
the wrong place.
According to the results of
previous studies on the bridge , estimated positive effects are numerous.
First, the results of the analysis which used the volume of traffic in 2005.
showed that there would be decrease in mileage by about 100,000 km per day if
only passenger cars are taken into consideration. This would save about 11 tons
of fuel a day. There would be used 3,250
tons less fuel per year. By 2021 year, when the volume of traffic is expected
to increase by 35%, results are even more significant amounting to savings of
about 35 tons of fuel per day or 10,000 tons per year. As a consequence of
those savings, there will be less air pollution. Second, the average time
required for travel would be shorter by around 30 minutes. Third, the new
bridge and the ring would reduce traffic flows on existing roads and bridges in
the center (30%), and thus eliminate delays and adverse effects caused by this
(the project itself provides a series of effective measures of environmental
protection, specific pavement, protective sound barrier, etc.). This list can
be extended with less tangible benefits such as the bridge would provide a look
of a metropolis to the city.
However, now I would like to turn
to the indirect economic effects, sometimes more difficult to assess but
equally important. Concerning its position, the bridge will provide higher
accessibility to the business core of the city which will lead to the higher
employment density.
Proof for this can be found in
the case of construction the Auckland bridge . Furthermore, in the same study,
the strong relationship between employment density and productivity measured by the average wages was proven.
Based on this, one might expect the same relationship to be established between
two parts of the Belgrade that are now
connected. This is the case especially because the productivity measured in
terms of average wages (Table 1) is the highest in the business part (out of 17 municipalities). The main factors
of agglomeration are benefits arising from increase in wages and productivity
coming from densification of activities in urban areas. It is planned to build
a tram road across the bridge as part of a public transportation network which
will improve accessibility even further since transport possibilities are
important in determining whether the city will be dense or detached.
 |
Table:
Annual average wages by municipalities, Belgrade
|
In addition, the improved
accessibility between two parts of the city optimizes land use over the city,
and it will surely increase the land prices in the areas close to the bridge.
Having in mind the role that
cities can play in enhancing both regional and national development, the
significance of an increasing productivity in the cities itself is one of the
major urban policies to be considered.
Next time while crossing any
bridge make sure to devote a few moments of admire to those magnificent
constructions whose great impact we tend to forget.
Interesting: Discovery channel
made a documentary movie “Built it Bigger” about this bridge, since it is the longest
single pylon cable bridge in the world.
More information: http://science.discovery.com/tv/build-bigger/projects/serbia/sava-river-bridge.html?fb_ref=fb2&fb_source=profile_oneline
No comments:
Post a Comment