Brăila Bridge
The Brăila Bridge is a road suspension bridge in Romania over the Danube river, between Brăila, a major city in eastern Romania, and the opposite bank of the river in Tulcea County, on the DN2S national road and European route E87. It is the first bridge over the maritime Danube sector and the fourth bridge over the Romanian section of the river. At nearly 2 km in length, it is the largest bridge over the Danube, and the third List of longest [suspension bridge spans|longest suspension bridge] in the European Union. The bridge improves road traffic accessibility of the Galați-Brăila area to Constanța and Tulcea, and connections of the Moldavia and Muntenia regions with Dobruja. The European Union co-funded the project with €363 million from Cohesion Policy funds.
Construction
First studies for a bridge in the Lower Danube region were done in 1986, but the first prefeasibility study was conducted in 1996. The final feasibility study was finished in 2016 by and Pegaso Ingegneria.In 2017, the bridge project was awarded to the Astaldi and IHI Infrastructure Systems association for an estimated cost of €434 million, and the construction works started in December 2018.
In May 2021, the construction of the two main pillars had finished, and preparations had been started to deploy the first cables across the bridge. On 20 August 2021, it was reported that the construction of the bridge is on schedule and that half of the bridge was already done.
The first of the 86 suspended segments of the roadway were installed in spring 2022, with the last one on 28 June 2022. The bridge was opened on 6 July 2023.