Dimitrovsky Bridge acquired new asphalt, cameras and traffic lights

During the seventies, the planning structure of the city underwent a number of transformations, which was primarily associated with the second communal bridge through the Ob. Its construction began in 1971. This was the fourth bridge across the Ob and the 30th in the city. It was a complex complex of structures, consisting of the bridge itself (cost about 20 million rubles) with a roadway length of 701 meters, a width of 30, with six-lane traffic along it. The bridge set also included approaches, entrances, and transport interchanges, which together with the bridge made up the length of the entire crossing of five km (total cost 53 million rubles). At the origins of the project of this complex were employees of ZapsibTIZIZ, Sibgiprotrans, Novosibgrazhdanproekt. The design assignment for the bridge in Sibgiprotrans was developed under the leadership of the chief engineer of the project E. G. Barabanov. The approaches to it were designed at Novosibgrazhdanproekt under the leadership of engineer V. E. Naumov. Working drawings were carried out by the Moscow Institute Giprotransmost (chief engineer of the project R. P. Nazarova).

In terms of its design, the bridge was unique (“out of class”). Its elements did not have bolted connections; it was all-welded. Such bridges have already been built in the country (in Moscow and Kyiv). The uniqueness of the Novosibirsk one was in the welding of installation joints in the “northern version”. The builders laid almost 25 km of welds on the steel structures of the bridge. Welding was carried out by workers who were specially trained in such work in Kyiv and Leningrad. Automatic welding was used to obtain ductile and cold-resistant seams. The welders were assisted by specialists from the Institute. E. O. Paton (Kyiv) and NIImostov (Leningrad). The first seam was welded on December 25, 1975. NIIZhT scientists also worked together with the workers (installers and welders) at all stages of the bridge’s construction, studying the distribution of stresses in the structures, comparing them with theoretical calculations. The steel elements of the bridge are made of low-alloy chrome-nickel steel supplied by the Orsko-Khalilovsky plant. Manufactured at factories in Voronezh and Ulan-Ude. The supporting parts were made of special high-strength steel casting (suppliers were Novosibirsk factories: Tyazhstanko-gidropress, Sibselmash, and Uralmash), which reduced their weight by almost half. The bridge structures consisted of two coastal parts and an overwater span, covered by main steel beams, 631 meters long, interconnected by reinforced concrete slabs. Their top served as a roadway. At the joints of the parts there are expansion joints, which, under the influence of temperature changes, “dampen” the movements of the bridge (by more than 20 cm). The structures of the metal part of the bridge weigh 4,800 tons, and 4,300 m3 of reinforced concrete - about 13,000. The entire span structure is installed on seven supports: five intermediate and two coastal, forming together six spans, two of which are navigable. The five pillars of the bridge stand on granite rock. They are shell pipes with a diameter of 1.6 meters, which stand on piles. Each has its own immersion depth, design and construction method. The construction of the supports took from a year to eight months. The installation of each support cost an average of a million rubles.

The bridge was built by workers and specialists from bridge team No. 38 of the Order of Lenin of the Mostostroy-2 trust, as well as the Dorstroy, Transhydromekhanizatsiya, Svyazstroy, Sibelektromontazh and others trusts. The bridge and the entire complex of structures was opened to traffic only on November 4, 1978.

S.N. Balandin, "Novosibirsk. History of urban planning 1945 - 1985."

Road workers have completed repairs on Dimitrovsky Bridge and Krasny Prospekt. The highways were updated under the “Safe and Quality Roads” (SKD) program. On October 1, the city commission assessed the result. These two road sections are the last this year under the federal program in Novosibirsk. All work was completed completely and on time.

Smooth asphalt, shining white markings, six lanes, new sidewalks - the repairs are complete. Workers changed almost 250 road signs. The contractor reports - they completed everything they planned: Dimitrov Avenue, Dimitrovsky Bridge, Energetikov Passage. There is an almost continuous flow of cars between the two banks.

Dimitrov Avenue and Dimitrovsky Bridge

“Due to traffic, work is limited in time, only during the night window. Accordingly, the deadlines turned out to be tight. But the contractor, I think, did a good job. The object can be accepted,” says Roman Dronov, head of the department of transport and road improvement complex of the Novosibirsk City Hall.

The asphalt warranty is four years. If deficiencies appear, the builders will have to eliminate them at their own expense. In general, special requirements were placed on reliability.

Road workers assure that the new traffic light will work even if the lights go out throughout the entire area. It has emergency batteries, and it is also very economical - it is made with LEDs instead of conventional light bulbs. The operating time without electricity supplied through central networks is 8 hours.

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Photo: Rostislav Netisov, website

The task was not only to repair the road, but also to reduce the number of accidents in this area. That’s why new traffic lights were installed and surveillance cameras were installed.

Those who like to ride “with the breeze” on smooth asphalt are seriously limited. Experts considered that accidents occur too often on the bridge. And they happen, for the most part, due to speeding. Therefore, cameras were installed closer to the left bank to film violators.

Red Avenue

Another road is Red Avenue. The same smooth asphalt and new markings. These are the last two sections repaired under the Safe and Quality Roads (SQR) program this year.

“In terms of this year, we had 15 objects. Six repair sites, and nine accident centers. We complete all projects on time in accordance with the technical specifications,” concludes the head of the Novosibirsk Road Construction Department, Yuri Alekseevsky.

The roads that will be repaired under the federal program next year are already known. These are sections of the Berdskoye Highway, Gogol, Frunze, Zhukovsky, Fabrichnaya, Bolshevik streets. In addition, part of 2nd Station Street will be expanded, and exits from the city along Kedrovaya Street and Gusinobrodskoe Highway will be reconstructed.

NOVOSIBIRSK, November 4 – RIA Novosti. The Dimitrovsky Bridge over the Ob River in Novosibirsk, connecting the Leninsky and Zheleznodorozhny districts, was put into operation exactly 35 years ago - on November 4, 1978. RIA Novosti correspondents got acquainted with archival materials and talked with experts about forgotten facts related to construction and why the bridge is called “Dimitrovsky”.

"Rat" river

In the middle of the last century, in the urban economy of Novosibirsk, sewerage was a rather ill-conceived and undeveloped system that did not meet both the requirements of the time and the needs of an actively growing city.

As employees of the City Museum told RIA Novosti, once upon a time, at the point where Lenin Street turned towards the station, there was a water stop - a hollow structure that directed the flow of water.

The flow ended up in the Mikhailovsky Log, located on the site of the current Dimitrov Avenue - from Kondratyuk Square to the Ob itself. Through this ravine, wastewater flowed into the river.

And rats lived and actively bred in the water trap. From time to time, wastewater would dislodge rats from the water trap, and entire families of rodents would float into the Ob. There were so many of them that this place, Mikhailovsky Log, was popularly called the “rat river.”

Now the townspeople don’t remember what the “rat river” is or where it was. However, it is in its place that several thousand cars and buses pass every day.

There was only one bridge over which it was possible to cross the Ob River by car - Oktyabrsky, commissioned in 1955. The city grew, by 1970 the population already exceeded 1.1 million people, and the need to build another bridge became obvious.

Based on the requirements of the general plan of Novosibirsk, it was advisable to build a new bridge crossing on the site of Mikhailovsky Log, which coincided with the plans and timing of the reconstruction of the city water supply and sewerage system.

© Photo: provided by the State Archive of the Novosibirsk Region

Construction of the bridge began in 1971 after several years of development and approval of design documentation.

There could have been eight stripes

An eight-lane bridge was discussed as one of the options. But for a number of reasons, including financial ones, they settled on six lanes. The carrying capacity of the Dimitrovsky Bridge, according to some sources, was calculated at 1.2 thousand units of transport; it was assumed that it would be exhausted by 1985.

Today specialists, after maximizing possible speed movement on the bridge up to 70 kilometers per hour and changes in the operation of traffic lights on access roads, evaluate it throughput at 4.8 thousand cars per hour. Although the bridge still has six lanes and during the day it often stops.

Financial restrictions were also the reason why the construction of the bridge and interchanges was divided into separate phases. The first stage included the bridge itself and the entrances on the right bank, the second - an embankment with an overpass to CHPP-2 on the left bank and a tunnel overpass under the marshalling yard on the right. The second stage was completed within several years after the bridge was accepted.

Unique design

The bridge stands on seven pillars, five of them are installed on the river bottom. In this way, six spans are created, two of them are navigable.

© Photo: provided by the State Archive of the Novosibirsk Region

The supports, the base of which are shell pipes with a diameter of 1.6 meters, are mounted on piles immersed in rock. The shells were first installed, then, after pumping out the water, they were filled with concrete. Each support has its own immersion depth and its own installation method.

A design solution without bolted connections was chosen for the bridge. The Dimitrovsky Bridge is all-welded. Its solid cast structures, mostly manufactured in Ulan-Ude, are connected by about 25 kilometers of cold-resistant welds. A special apparatus was developed for this welding, and the builders underwent special training.

The part of the bridge over water, 631 meters long, is constructed of beams with reinforced concrete slabs. The purpose of butt seams is not only to join, but also to compensate for metal movements due to changes in atmospheric temperatures.

The weight of the metal part of the bridge is about 4.8 thousand tons, the reinforced concrete part is almost 13 thousand tons. The length of the roadway of the bridge is 701 meters, width is 30 meters. The total length of the bridge, approaches and interchanges is 5 kilometers. The cost of construction amounted, according to various sources, from 53 to 75 million rubles.

In the fall of 1978, the bridge was tested. The maximum load was created by a continuous column of trucks with crushed stone and other heavy bulk materials building material. The column filled the bridge, the structure held up, and the builders received an “excellent” rating. When the dump trucks cleared the bridge, jubilant citizens and construction workers walked across it from both banks in continuous streams.

© Photo: courtesy of the Novosibirsk Museum

The Novosibirsk Museum believes that the bridge was quite officially named Dimitrovsky, but there is also no document in the museum about assigning this name to it.

Actually, the circumstances surrounding the name of the prospectus itself are little known. As the museum explains, at that time naming objects in honor of revolutionaries of other countries friendly to the USSR was quite common. But exactly how this decision was made is not known exactly.

Georgiy Dimitrov (1882-1949) - Bulgarian and international activist communist movement, who was called the Bulgarian Lenin. After the establishment of the Soviet regime in Bulgaria, he took the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers, then - General Secretary of the Central Committee of the BCP.

After his death, just like Lenin, he was mummified and placed in a special sarcophagus in a mausoleum in Sofia. However, after the fall of the communist regime in Bulgaria, as was officially reported, at the request of his relatives he was buried. The mausoleum was demolished in 1999.

Data was used from open sources, the Novosibirsk Museum and the archive service.