Schierstein Bridge

The Schierstein Bridge is 1282m long, four-lane highway bridge in Germany. It carries Bundesautobahn 643 over the Rhine River between Mainz-Mombach, Rhineland-Palatinate and Wiesbaden-Schierstein, Hesse . Crossing two arms of the Rhine and the intervening island of Rettbergsaue, the bridge is made of six individual structures, including 100m from prestressed concrete. It was built between 1959 and 1962.The Schierstein Bridge is located about 5.8km downstream of the Theodor Heuss Bridge. Together with the Theodor Heuss Bridge and the A 60 bridge, it is one of three road bridges across the Rhine at Mainz. It is the last bridge over the Middle Rhine for 80km downstream, before the Südbrücke in Koblenz.From mid-February to mid-April 2015 the bridge was closed from all traffic due to extensive structural damage.HistoryAt the end of the 1950s and early 1960s, the states of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate began an extensive road construction program to further the development of the Rhine-Main Region. Planners recognized a need for a connection between the former Rhine-Main Expressway (Rhein-Main Schnellweg, now Bundesautobahn 66) on the right bank and Bundesstraße 9 (now Landstraße 419) on the left bank through a crossing of the Rhine north of Mainz. The bridge was also necessary to create a traffic ring in the Mainz-Wiesbaden area to better handle traffic coming from Frankfurt and Darmstadt. This ring, consisting of the A 643, A 66, A 671 and A 60, also included a second Rhine bridge south of Mainz.