Progress on the Saale River Crossing of the German highway A143

Steel assembly began last August and has continued with several intermediate pushes until June 2025. A significant milestone was recently achieved with the main launch of the bridge over the river. During this process, the superstructure, lightened at the tip, was longitudinally pushed with a 33-meter-long, 87.3-ton pre-assembled launching nose in the construction state, cantilevering up to 130 meters — a technically demanding engineering process precisely planned by sbp. Final steelwork adjustments will be completed by October, followed by the lowering of the main span bridge.

Over the past 2.5 years, our team has taken on the complex detailed planning — from foundation design to launching technology and assembly support structures. Notably, the innovative orthotropic deck slab used as the roadway is one of the first of its kind in Germany, along with the 171-meter-long glass enclosure of the main span bridge, which provides optimal noise protection on site. To our knowledge, a comparable fully enclosed glass tunnel over a highway has not yet been realized. The enclosure transitions seamlessly, without joints on the main span, into a 4.5 m high glazed noise barrier, offering attractive noise protection over nearly 400 m in total length.

We thank all project partners for the excellent collaboration, especially the Max Bögl group, the checking engineering team comprising B+S and Mensinger Stadler, DEGES as the client, K+S Consult and Baumann+Obholzer as our planning partners for the approach bridge and the tunnel, respectively, PIS Pechal for assembly planning, and saul ingenieure for the launching nose design.

Further insights and project videos can be found here.