Prague 8 wants to revitalize the Negrelli Bridge

Prague - The Prague 8 municipality plans to make better use of the Negrelli Viaduct, which crosses Sokolovska Street, one of the main streets of this district. "Today it separates Karlín from the city center. We want it to be a gateway between Karlín and the center, not a barrier,” said the mayor of Prague 8, Josef Nosek, to journalists today. However, tenants of the spaces created between the arches of the bridge have contracts with the property owner that will likely remain in effect for at least several more months, municipal representatives stated.
    The Negrelli Viaduct is a technical cultural monument. It is the second oldest bridge in Prague and the first railway bridge over the Vltava River. At the time of its construction, with a length of 1111 meters and 87 arches, it was a world unique. Soon, however, as industry began to grow rapidly, craftsmen and forwarding agents started to use the space under the arches of the bridge, and the vacant areas were provisionally blocked off with boarding, while the high space was mezzanined to utilize every meter of gained area.
    An insensitive intervention into the authenticity of the viaduct was the demolition of two pillars in the area of Křižíkova Street to allow cars to pass more easily. In the 1980s, a similar intervention occurred on the Holešovice side. On the other hand, between Křižíkova and Pobřežní, the arches were freed, and the viaduct was highlighted with renewed vistas. This is what the Karlín municipality would now like to do in the area of the bridge crossing with Sokolovska.
    Today, the space under the bridge is occupied by recycling collection points or warehouses. The municipality would like to see either completely empty spaces that would visually connect the today separated parts of Karlín, or airy and bright cafés in their place. According to the mayor, people are also complaining about the noise associated with the operation of the collection point.
    However, the viaduct belongs to the Railway Administration and Transport Pathways, from which the municipality is, according to its representatives, still unsuccessfully trying to obtain the terms of the closed contracts. It will therefore take more years than months before the plan to revitalize the viaduct could be realized. "We can't kick this off now because we are before the elections, and we don't want to tie our plans to the next municipality," said the mayor.