As the city developed, apartment blocs were built
on both sides of the railroad, which eventually turned out to cross the center of the
Micalaca city district. Because of the wear through time and the damages sustained during
the war, the bridge has become very degraded. The first dangerous cracks were detected in
1987. INCERTRANS, the Railway Register and the metal constructions faculty made a number
of inspections in 1989, 1992 and 1994. In the summer of 1998, floods on the Mures river
affected a pole and made it completely unsafe. It was decided to seal off railway traffic
on the bridge and deviate the trains to the Arad - Radna - Timisoara and Arad - Deva - Tg.
Jiu - Craiova routes. The bridge is closed to this day.
Ever since 1992, SNCFR (now CFR - SA) tried to
repair the bridge but, to its surprise, was unable to obtain a construction authorization
from the Arad City Hall. The reason is very simple and very costly: the City Hall wants to
replace the bridge with a new one, 2 kilometers upstream, and deflect railway traffic 7.5
kilometers to make it pass out of the city. This deflection was included in the city's
urbanism plan, but the railway administration was not consulted.
CFR - SA agrees that building a new bridges on the location indicated by the City Hall is the only solution for a future doubling of the Timisoara - Arad line. But this endeavor can only be accomplished in a distant future, given the funds and time needed to complete the works. Until then, the existing bridge requires urgent repairs in order to resume traffic between Timisoara and Arad.
To be impartial, we have tried to contact the Arad City Hall by telephone. Since the Mayor was on vacation, we were suggested to talk to deputy Mayor Ioan Davida, who turned out to be too taken with daily matters to afford the time to speak with us. Therefore, we will only present the position of CFR - SA, presented by Rudolf Plesch, commercial director.
"In July 1998, we received the Urbanism Certificate. Unfortunately, it expired a year later because we were unable to obtain the construction authorization. We could have sued the City Hall in court for failure to meet the deadline. We didn't, because we wanted to preserve a way to resolve the problem. A trial like this drags on for two or three years and in the meantime the works would have stalled. The only thing we could do was to present the case to the public opinion through mass media. The City Hall argues that it won't have a railway crossing the city. In 1987 there was a bridge repair project, when the proposal was made to build a new double-track bridge. At that time, money was being invested in infrastructure, the Arad - Timisoara railway was about to be doubled, and the road was to be deactivated. Now, there is no question of deactivating the road, and the City Hall
seems to have lost
confidence in us. We don't believe it is the time to build a new bridge; we want to repair
the existing one, which will have the same capacity and will not affect the city; in fact,
everyone will stand to gain, including the inhabitants of the Micalaca district, where the
trains will pass. These people would benefit from a systematization of vehicle and
pedestrian traffic. The CFR - SA has vowed to build a road and three pedestrian lanes
underneath the railway, and connect them to the existing street network. The CFR project
also includes sound absorbent panels along the railroad in order to reduce noise levels.
We think it would be much better for the locals considering that the bridge is now very
degraded and anyone can fall off.
There is also the money issue. Repairing the existing bridge would cost 90 billion lei, and building a new one could fetch up to 450 billion lei in costs. We currently have the money needed for the repair works, but there are no funds to build a new bridge. Another factor is time, with repairs lasting 18 months, as opposed to three or four years for building a new one from the ground up.
This incredible situation has been going on for a year now. The war between the City Hall and CFR - SA does not help anyone, much less the inhabitants of Arad. A return to the negotiation table seems to be the best solution for both sides.
When we closing the issue, we learned that, in a protocol signed by CFR - SA, represented by general manager Viorel Simut, and CCCF, through its representative, Nicusor Constantinescu, the bridge was turned over to the Railways Construction Company, which will complete repair works by September 2000.
Aurelia Nicolae
