The Pont Charles-de-Gaulle (''Charles-de-Gaulle Bridge'') is a steel-reinforced

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...

girder bridge straddling the river Seine in the eastern part of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. It is a one-way bridge carrying road traffic from the 13th arrondissement to the 12th arrondissement. Another one-way bridge further downstream,

Pont d'Austerlitz The Pont d'Austerlitz is a bridge which crosses the Seine River in Paris, France. It owes its name to the battle of Austerlitz (1805). Location The bridge links the 12th arrondissement at the rue Ledru-Rollin, to the 5th and 13th arrondissements, ...

, carries traffic in the opposite direction.

History

In 1986, the

Council of Paris The Council of Paris (French: ''Conseil de Paris'') is the deliberative body responsible for governing Paris, the capital of France. It possesses both the powers of a municipal council (''conseil municipal'') and those of a departmental counci ...

(''Conseil de Paris'') decided to construct a new bridge between the

Pont de Bercy The Pont de Bercy (English: Bridge of Bercy) is a bridge over the Seine in Paris. It links the 12th and 13th arrondissement of Paris by extending the Boulevard de Bercy and Boulevard Vincent-Auriol. In addition to the roadway, the bridge also ...

and the

in southeast Paris, to imitate the design of the

. The aims of this project were three in number: (1) to ease the traffic on the Pont d'Austerlitz, the most heavily trafficked bridge in the capital; (2) to connect the new Bibliothèque nationale de France (also known as the François Mitterrand Library) to the district of

Bercy Bercy () is a neighbourhood in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, the city's 47th administrative neighbourhood. History Some of the oldest vestiges of human occupation in Paris were found on the territory of Bercy, dating from the late Neolithic ...

on the

Right Bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography, as follows. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terrai ...

of the Seine; and (3) to establish a direct link between the

Gare de Lyon The Gare de Lyon, officially Paris-Gare-de-Lyon, is one of the six large mainline railway stations in Paris, France. It handles about 148.1 million passengers annually according to the estimates of the SNCF in 2018, with SNCF railways and RER ...

and the Gare d'Austerlitz. A Europe-wide competition was held in 1987 to determine the best project design. At the conclusion of the competition, the concept set forth by Louis Arretche and Roman Karasinski was chosen for the bridge. The rationale for this choice was that it did not detract from the aesthetic exterior of the Viaduc d'Austerlitz, a structure further downstream, and that it discreetly preserved the existing view of the river.

Bridge structure

The bridge has a single steel deck measuring 270 m long and 35 m wide, and the shape of which resembles an aircraft wing. It is supported by two concrete piers. Linking each pier to the deck are two conical steel frames shaped like upside-down tents. The bridge roadway (not including footpaths and cycle lanes) is 18 m wide and carries four lanes of northeast-bound traffic from the Left Bank to the Right Bank. Two cycle lanes to the upstream side of the bridge and two footpaths, one on each side of it, permit unmotorized traffic to cross.

Access

External links

{{Commonscat
More bridge history

Technical Specifications
Bridges over the River Seine in Paris Bridges completed in 1996

History

Bridge structure

Access

See also

External links