Repairs to the Paton Bridge must be undertaken immediately: statement issued by the National Academy of Sciences
8 March 08:16
The repair and reconstruction of the E.O. Paton Bridge in Kyiv must be undertaken without delay.
This was stated by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
“The Paton Bridge in Kyiv can still be saved. Accidents and irreparable consequences can be prevented. If we don’t waste any time,” said Oleksandr Shymanovskyi, corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and director general of the Ukrainian Institute of Steel Structures named after V.M. Shymanovskyi.
It is noted that it was this institute that once designed the Paton Bridge under the leadership of Academician Yevgeny Paton and has been conducting periodic monitoring and visual and instrumental surveys of the structure since 1953.
The NAS emphasized that experts know how to repair the bridge so that it becomes safe and serves our capital for many decades to come.
It is said that the first thing that needs to be done is to
- reinforce the extreme main beams (upper and lower) on support No. 25;
- repair intermediate supports No. 11 (above-water part) and No. 21 (underwater part);
- repair or replace the cross beams;
- repair the trusses of the span structures;
- repair the lighting poles and railing fences;
- replace expansion joints.
“If the defects identified during last year’s inspection of the bridge are not eliminated in the near future and the reconstruction (restoration) is not carried out, its structures will not only continue to deteriorate, but will deteriorate at an accelerated rate.
This could lead to the complete collapse of some structures (particularly load-bearing ones), resulting in human casualties and the collapse of Kyiv’s entire transport infrastructure,” Shimanovsky emphasized.
The Metro and Paton bridges have been in disrepair for decades.
In May 2024, the Kyivavtodor municipal corporation announced a tender for the restoration of the Metro Bridge. The expected cost of the order is 2,009,825,454 hryvnia.
According to Vyacheslav Bogdanov, first vice president of the National Academy of Sciences, the Paton Bridge in Kyiv still lacks proper attention: corrosion is destroying the structure, and if no action is taken, it may be too late in five years.
On March 5, the Kyiv City State Administration announced that the Paton Bridge across the Dnipro River in Kyiv can continue to be used, but traffic must comply with previously established restrictions.
