Sound Bridge

The Øresund Bridge or Öresund Bridge is a combined railway and motorway cable-stayed bridge across the Øresund strait between Denmark and Sweden. It is the second longest bridge in Europe and combines both roadway and railway in a single structure, consisting of international European route E20 and the Øresund Line respectively. It runs nearly 8 kilometres (5 miles) from the Swedish coast to the artificial island of Peberholm in the middle of the strait. The Øresund Link is completed by the 4-kilometre (2.5 mi) Øresund Tunnel from Peberholm to the Danish island of Amager. Construction began in 1995 and it opened to traffic on 1 July 2000. The bridge, as part of the Øresund Link, directly connects the road and rail networks of the Scandinavian Peninsula with Mainland Europe, via the Great Belt Fixed Link (constructed 1988–1998) connecting Zealand to Funen and thence to the Jutland Peninsula. Both projects helped to lessen the isolation of Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia from the rest of the continent. A data cable also makes the Øresund Link the backbone of Internet data transmission between central Europe and Sweden. The bridge was designed by Jørgen Nissen and Klaus Falbe Hansen from Ove Arup & Partners, and Niels Gimsing and Georg Rotne. The justification for the additional expenditure and complexity related to digging a tunnel for part of the way, rather than raising that section of the bridge, was to avoid interfering with air traffic from the nearby Copenhagen Airport, to provide a clear channel for ships in good weather or bad, and to prevent ice floes from blocking the strait. The bridge received the 2002 IABSE Outstanding Structure Award.

The Story Of… - 2007-07-10T00:00:00.000000Z

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