Footbridge with cafés across the Vistula

“These streets connect very important parts of Warsaw. Ul. Karowa leads directly to Krakowskie Przedmieście, one of the most elegant boulevards in the city, while ul. Okrzei constitutes the centre of the old Praga district and continues along ul. Ząbkowska and ul. Kawęczyńska. The construction of the overpass will allow us to create an entire pedestrian and cyclist route that will integrate the left and right banks of Warsaw. Because the work on the revitalisation of Praga district is in progress, such a project will be of great support in this process,” said architect Małgorzata Dembowska, who is responsible for the concept drawn up by Warsaw University of Technology’s faculty of architecture of as part of a diploma paper written under the supervision of Prof. Ewa Kuryłowicz.

According to the concept, the pedestrian and cyclist section has a width of more than 6m and there will be cafés along some of its sections. The bridge will have a total length of 450m. “The Vistula is quite broad in Warsaw and so adding amenities along the bridge could shorten the apparent distance between the two embankments. However, this is only a proposal perhaps worth considering, since all the design and conceptual issues will be settled in the course of a competition, probably within this year,” added Małgorzata Dembowska. The Municipal Road Authority will be responsible for conducting the international competition for the design of the bridge, which is to be constructed in 2016–2019.