Oresund Bridge

Bridges & Tunnels Project
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TVSbridges.htm

The Oresund Bridge

The Oresend Bridge was opened on 1st July, 2000. The bridge links Denmark and Sweden together for the first time since the Ice Age. The new road and rail project covers 10.5 miles (17km) between Malmo and Copenhagen and now physically links together Sweden and the rest of Western Europe.

The ferry that goes between Malmo and Copenhagen takes three-quarters of an hour while travellers using the bridge can get across in a car in just over ten minutes.

Plans to link Malmo and Copenhagen dates back to the 1800s. However, nationalist objections in the 19th century and environmental protesters in recent years were able to block plans to link the people from these two great cities.

The Oresend Bridge took four years and cost £3.3 billion to build. The bridge at 1,624 metres metres, is the second longest suspension bridge in the world. The main bridge pylons are the tallest structures in Sweden, with a height of 203.5 metres. The Oresend Link passes over the artificial island of Pepparholm and through the world's longest submerged tunnel beneath the Danish section of the sound.

Designed by George Rothne, the bridge has no cross-beams between the pylon towers. Rothne explained: "I don't like too much flamboyance. And I wanted the bridge to be, if not S-shaped, then curved, and for the girders to be black. Bright colours would have faded away; but black is versatile and can serve as a variety of colours, depending on the light and from where you view the bridge."

The bridge links the islands of Zealand and Funen across the Storebalt. Initially it was hoped to build a bridge all the way across the Oresund. However, like the proposal to build a Channel bridge to span the 21-mile expanse of water between England and France, it was decided that this was technologically too difficult to achieve.

The bridge offers the possibility of increased cultural, educational and economic links between Malmo and Copenhagen. Politicians in both Sweden and Denmark have claimed that the bridge will increase business investment and economic activity in the Oresund region.

In the recent past unemployment has been higher in Malmo than Copenhagen. However, with the existence of the bridge, it is now possible to live in one city while working in the other. It has been argued that the region, with its expertise in information technology and biomedicine, will become one of Europe's leading "knowledge centres".

Leif Pagrotsky, the minister for trade in the Swedish government has said the Oresund Bridge project "could serve as a model of integration for other countries in northern Europe and indeed as a model of cross-border co-operation in the rest of Europe."

The Oresund Bridge is no doubt another step in the march towards a borderless Europe where individual countries are getting physically closer and closer together.