The Kyiv City Administration said that it would proceed with a major Hr 250 million renovation of the Paton Bridge, used daily by thousands of commuters.
The repair work will require closure of one lane of the four-lane bridge at a time, said Valeri Korotych, director general of Kyiv’s Bridge Construction Department No. 2 and chairman of Ukrmostbud, the design group that has already started to plan the repair effort.
Korotych said that the work would include installation of new railings and sidewalks, and the restoration of ornamental metalwork that spans the length of the 50-year-old bridge over the Dnipro.
The bridge, which connects Druzhby Narodiv on the right bank with Vozzyednanya Prospekt on the left bank, has not had major restoration work since its construction in 1953. According to Korotych, it is in a state of disrepair.
The city may also remove tram tracks that run down the center of the bridge.
Architectural consultant Roman Shwed agreed, but added that if the work was not necessary for safety reasons, it might be wiser to build a new bridge rather than refurbish an old one.
“Riding across it now is not fun,” said Shwed. “It is a bumpy ride.”
“But I believe that you do [restoration] when you don’t have other things to spend the money on,” he said.
Shwed said that in the last 10 years, he has seen traffic volumes on the bridge swell to “horrendous” levels, and noted that traffic is getting progressively worse. He worries that closing even one lane on the bridge to accommodate repair crews will increase the frequency of traffic jams, which are already common.
According to Kyiv traffic police, 100,000 vehicles per day cross Kyiv’s bridges, a five-fold increase since 1991.
Transportation Ministry spokes-man Konstantyn Remyzovsky said that he had no problem with Kyiv spending money to repair the Paton Bridge after the city nixed a plan spearheaded by the ministry to build a six-lane bridge over the Dnipro.
“It’s fantastic,” said Remyzovsky. “This is good. [The city] should have done this a long time ago. They have our full support.”
Remyzovsky added that his ministry’s plans to construct an additional bridge are still underway.
Shwed said that although he had not seen the city’s engineering specifications for the bridge work, the estimated cost indicated that the project involves refurbishment, rather than a wholesale rebuilding for safety reasons.
“If they’re doing it for safety reasons, that’s something else,” said Shwed. “That bridge carries a lot of cars … and if it’s something that needs to be done, then I support doing it.”
“But if it’s just for cosmetic changes, then I think they have to set priorities,” he said. “The closure of those lanes will be a headache.”
Other Kyiv city projects that are expected to reduce congestion and that are listed as priorities include a bridge linking the Obolon residential district with the city center.
And recently, the city said it planned to build a new bridge linking Perov Boulevard in Troeshchyna, a largely residential area on the left bank, with Mezhyhirska in Podil, at a cost of nearly Hr 1.9 billion. Both bridges are expected to ease congestion dramatically.
However, representatives from the city said that the bridge to Podil won’t be completed for at least seven years.
Shwed said that the Paton Bridge, one of the world’s first completely welded bridges, is of historical significance.
“It’s got some nice detail in it,” said Shwed, recalling the Soviet-era metalwork that is to be restored. “Whether you like communism or not doesn’t matter. The guys who built it were proud of their work.”
Less urgent projects on the city’s agenda include the construction of new access roads linking highways from Kyiv to Vinnytsya and Odessa oblasts, and the rebuilding of the Naddnipryanske Highway.
