Pont Haudaudine, Concrete bridge in Nantes, France.
Pont Haudaudine is a prestressed concrete beam bridge over the Madeleine arm of the Loire in Nantes, linking rue Gaston-Veil in the city centre to rue Louis-Blanc on the Île de Nantes. It has three spans, a flat deck with a metal railing, and rests on vertical concrete piers, the nearest a wide rectangular column. It was inaugurated on 22 December 1979.
The first bridge, with five cast-iron arches on four piers and two masonry abutments, was funded by a municipal loan voted on 19 October 1875; the city contributed 430,000 francs and the state half the cost. Consolidated between 1921 and 1924, it was dynamited by German troops in 1944 and reopened on 17 August 1945. The current prestressed concrete box-girder bridge was built from 1973 to 1979 and inaugurated on 22 December 1979.
The bridge marks, together with the Pirmil railway bridge, the maritime limit of the Loire at Nantes since 1959: beyond this point the river is considered fluvial. Its name recalls the Haudaudine district on the city-centre side, and the crossing links rue Gaston-Veil to rue Louis-Blanc on the Île de Nantes.
The bridge is open to motor vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians, serving as a main transport route between central Nantes and the Isle of Nantes. The wide roadway and pathways on both sides make crossing convenient at all times of day.
Since 1959, this bridge and the Pirmil railway bridge have marked the maritime limit of the Loire at Nantes: beyond them the river is considered fluvial. Before that date, they were the last structures before the estuary and blocked ships from the port from sailing further upstream.
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