Four and a half years after the groundbreaking, the partial renovation of the Echelsbach bridge has been completed.
Traffic has been rolling over the mighty structure again since Sunday.
Before that, there were - due to the Corona - on a small scale - a few speeches, the church blessing and a one-off walk.
Echelsbach
- Josef Maier could hardly wait.
The moped rattled beneath him, a Vicky from 1953. And he waited for a sign.
“Can I?” He called, someone answered “Yes” - and the Bayersoier drove off.
But only a few meters, early start.
Everyone laughed, a cameraman wasn't ready to capture the special moment.
Because Maier was allowed to be the first to drive over the newly renovated Echelsbacher Bridge on Sunday lunchtime.
A moment later the Bayersoier rattled off before the rest of the traffic was directed back to the structure.
Some of the first drivers looked confused to the right and left, from where they were greeted - some were not aware of the magic of the moment.
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The ribbon is cut, the bridge opened: From the left you can see Stefan Scheckinger (Head of the State Building Authority Weilheim), Gerhard Pahl (planner from Dr. Schütz Ingenieure), Gerald Greunz (Strabag company), Alexander Dobrindt, and the district administrator Andrea Jochner-Weiß and Anton Speer, Bayersoien's mayor Gisela Kieweg and Christoph Prause (department head at the Weilheim State Building Authority).
© Hans-Helmut Herold
The pedestrians do.
The Weilheim State Building Authority had invited representatives of the construction companies and municipalities as well as guests of honor to open the bridge with which Bundesstraße 23 overcomes the Ammer Gorge after four and a half years of construction.
Stefan Scheckinger, head of the Weilheim State Building Authority, welcomed around 40 people in a cordoned-off area for which there was a 2G restriction.
Contemporary witness remembers the opening of the bridge over 90 years ago
Including Josef Achmüller from Wildsteig.
The 96-year-old was a sought-after conversation partner on this cold morning.
After all, he saw the bridge opened in 1930.
"I can still remember it well," he said and smiled.
"Wildsteig had a float, I was sitting in the front." The structure was built within a year, from 1928 to 1929.
And it has been repaired again and again - Achmüller helped himself, as an employee of a road construction company.
The last time he repaired something on the bridge "must have been 40 years".
Like many others, he followed the construction work in recent years with great interest.
Around 3,900 people took part in the construction site tours, which were offered by five volunteers from April 2019 to October 2021.
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Contemporary witness: Josef Achmüller from Wildsteig was a boy when it opened in 1930.
© Hans-Helmut Herold
Alexander Dobrindt was always there.
In 2017, as Federal Minister of Transport, he was present at the groundbreaking ceremony and did not miss the traffic release.
A number of “superlatives” are linked to the bridge, said the Peißenberger, who sits in the Bundestag for the CSU: 183 meters long, 76 meters high, 17.6 meters wide.
Dobrindt also had a number ready for the makeshift bridge: "15,000 screws hold them together."
The temporary bridge will be dismantled in spring
This was built for a year so that the traffic on the B23 could flow during the construction period. "We are very grateful that the temporary bridge has done its job," said Christoph Prause, head of the "Bridge and Civil Engineering" department at the Weilheim State Building Authority. The first work on the dismantling should start on Monday, and after a winter break it will continue in February. Once the temporary bridge has been dismantled, restoration work begins - provided everything goes according to plan.
The Echelsbacher Bridge showed that this is not always the case.
A snowy winter 2018/19 and the corona pandemic made life difficult for those responsible.
"That was a mammoth task for the construction company," said Prause - because workers from Austria and Poland were not able to travel due to entry regulations, and delivery times for components were also extended.
To have mastered all of this "was an excellent achievement".
According to Prause, the renovation remained within limits with costs of around 36 million euros and an extension of the construction time by ten weeks.
"I am very satisfied with the result."
Town hall chiefs from Rottenbuch and Wildsteig stayed away from the opening
The guests were able to convince themselves of this afterwards.
Among them were the district administrators Andrea Jochner-Weiß (Weilheim-Schongau) and Anton Speer (Garmisch-Partenkirchen) as well as Gisela Kieweg, Bayersoien's mayor - why the town hall chiefs Josef Taffertshofer (Wildsteig) and Markus Bader (Rottenbuch) were absent could not be found out.
Instead, around 35 onlookers had come to watch what was happening from a distance, but were later also allowed to stroll across the bridge, which was not yet used.
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Ready to go: Bavarian Josef Maier was the first to cross the bridge.
© Hans-Helmut Herold
Previously, Pastor Josef Fegg and Pastor Bettina Mogk gave the church blessing - so that after the accident-free construction period, nothing happens on the bridge in the future.
Both projected the connecting role of a bridge onto society.
“We need built bridges,” said Mogk.
"But also bridges between people, between Christians and Muslims, between vaccinated and unvaccinated."
After the blessing, those present walked across the street.
To the great joy of some of the children who rushed around laughing and throwing snowballs.
When all the pedestrians were back at the roundabout, they cleared the street.
Maier started his moped, the blocking signs were put aside.
The traffic had the Echelsbacher bridge back.