The Constitution of 1812 Bridge, also known as La Pepa Bridge (El puente de la Constitución de 1812 or Puente de La Pepa in Spanish), is a new

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

across the Bay of Cadiz, linking Cadiz with

Puerto Real Puerto Real () is a municipality of Spain, belonging to the province of Cádiz, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. , it had a population of 42,151. The town is located on the northern shore of the inner lobe of the Bay of Cádiz. It wa ...

in mainland Spain. Cadiz's first bridge, the Carranza bridge, was inaugurated in 1969, and is now crossed by some 40,000 vehicles per day. In 1982 the Spanish government accepted the need for a second bridge. It has two 180 m pylons, one in the sea and the other in Cabezuelas Harbour, a 540-meter span and 69 meters of vertical clearance. The bridge also includes a 150-meter removal span. It is the second bridge that crosses over to Cádiz from the mainland, after Carranza bridge, and one of the highest bridges in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, with a gauge of 69 meters and a total length of 5 kilometers. It is the third access to the city, along with the isthmus

San Fernando San Fernando may refer to: People *Ferdinand III of Castile (c. 1200–1252), called ''San Fernando'' (Spanish) or ''Saint Ferdinand'', King of Castile, León, and Galicia Places Argentina *San Fernando de la Buena Vista, city of Greater Buenos ...

and the Carranza bridge. Given the large width of the deck, it will be a high capacity bridge: a motorway with two lanes in each direction and two lanes reserved for metropolitan public transport such as the

Cádiz Bay tram-train The Cádiz Bay tram-train, popularly known as Trambahía, is a tram-train/light rail system in the Spain, Spanish city of Cádiz and the surrounding area. The system opened on . It is the fourth metropolitan light rail system to be built in And ...

. The bill was drafted by the civil engineer

Javier Manterola Javier Manterola Armisén (17 June 1936 – 12 May 2024) was a Spanish civil engineer and professor at the Escuela Superior de Ingenieros de Madrid. Manterola was particularly known for his work as a bridge designer of the engineering firm ''Car ...

. The works were scheduled for completion in 2012, coinciding with the bicentenary of the

Spanish Constitution of 1812 The Political Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy (), also known as the Constitution of Cádiz () and nicknamed ''La Pepa'', was the first Constitution of Spain and one of the earliest codified constitutions in world history. The Constitution ...

, which was drafted in Cádiz. However, due to cuts in public works resulting from the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

, the work was more than three years late. By summer 2013 work had progressed but at a slower pace. As of early 2014 work progressed at a good pace, highlighting the installation of its cable-stayed span and the hiring of more daily staff (including night shifts). As of the first half of 2015, the bridge structure was completed, with full completion in September of the same year. As data highlights: * The earlier draft described an

arch bridge An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its structural load, loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either si ...

whose total length was 2.355 km. * The total length of the current project, viaducts and links is 5 kilometers: 3096 meters on the bridge of which 1655 meters will be over the sea, with a main span of 540 meters record of Spain, with one hundred meters more than the bridge engineer Carlos Fernández Casado, the famous civil engineer, the reservoir Barrios de Luna. Besides the vain is the third largest in Europe suspended class, after Rio-Antirio Bridge and Normandy Bridge. * The maximum height above the sea level is 69 meters, with two pylons of 187 meters, making it one of the tallest bridges in Europe. * They are 30 meters higher than the

pylons Pylon may refer to: Structures and boundaries * Pylon (architecture), the gateway to the inner part of an Ancient Egyptian temple or Christian cathedral * Pylon, a support tower structure for suspension bridges or highways * Pylon, an orange mar ...

between both sides of the bay. The bridge connects the San Pedro River (district) in

with the neighborhood of La Paz in Cadiz.

The construction project

The proposed construction of a new access to the city of Cadiz by way of a bridge over the

Bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

has its origins in the ''Order of Highways Studies'' in April 2003, which in turn took into account various studies dating back to 1989. The aim of the project was to resolve the traffic congestion problems suffered by the access to Cadiz from

(Bridge José León de Carranza and CA-33). The draft included studies for ''three riders'' that link the N-443 in the San Pedro Bay crossing access into Cádiz: * A. Northern Zone Cabezuela straight through Bay area reaching the shipyard in Cadiz, past the northern edge of spring Cabezuela. * B. The limit shipyards factory in Matagorda, and after passing through the southern end of spring Cabezuela, describes an arc in the bay to reach the area also shipyards in Cádiz, thus saving the channel navigation, in order to reduce the junction depth. * C. Continued on the trace of the N-443, and when one reaches the edge of the bay, on the southern edge of Astilleros de Matagorda, crosses S for describing a road connecting with the city in the Props area, connecting with the new diagonal Avenue and Bay. In all three cases a cross section separated by two lanes, shoulders and median lanes are envisioned. Regarding the crossing structure bay, the three paths are designed in submerged tunnel. Moreover, in the "A" alternative solution fixed bridge large gauge was studied because it was the only one whose configuration permitted naturally, across a single alignment channel surfing and having a path straight admitting great light openings for the passage of ships. Similarly, three alternatives were studied bridge: archery, cable-stayed and suspension. The "A" alternative structure bridge for crossing the Bay was selected as the best solution for urban traffic on both banks of the bay, the lowest investment also considered that nicely integrates both urban planning and landscape. Of the different types of bridge studied, the ''braced'' was selected as the lowest cost and the simplest structural concept.

Execution of the work

Its construction has been contracted to the joint venture (UTE) formed by Dragados and DRACE (Special and Dragados Construcciones). The project has a budget of 273 million euros, and their duration is estimated at 42 months. Workers are 500 direct employment in times of maximum intensity.

Description

It is a highway whose speed adopted in the project, as permitted approval of the draft, has been set at 80 km/h, justified based on the urban nature of the performance. The bridge has a total length of 4580 meters, with the following lights in the sea: * Access to Cadiz: 25 meters × 7 meters; 75 meters * Stretch detachable: 150 meters * Access Puerto Real: 850 meters The suspension bridge is the highest stretch with maximum longitudinal slope of 5%. On land the bridge is built on the industrial area of La Cabezuela, releasing the existing road condition. It has three lanes in each direction for vehicular traffic, with central median 0.8 meters with a rigid barrier, and side sidewalks with net width of 1.30 meters. The total width of the bridge is 30.5 meters except where the bracing section expands 32.5 meters to accommodate suspension struts.

Dredging

The layer of Quaternary materials is dredged so that sidewalks foundation of pile caps settle to the firm layer of

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58Bridges in Andalusia Cable-stayed bridges in Spain Road bridges in Spain Buildings and structures in Cádiz