Moelven Töreboda delivers Sweden’s largest wooden bridge to Solna

The wooden bridge from Töreboda, which can hold five lanes of heavy traffic, will remain standing for less than three years. For Moelven Töreboda, the project represents an order worth 30 million kroner.

– This is a project that we truly look forward to getting off the ground, says Stefan Wennerström, Chief of Operations at Svevia. Building this type of major wooden bridge is not an everyday occurrence, and it feels right to be using a renewable and recyclable material to build a temporary bridge that will be torn down after three years.

It will be built close to the Norra Länken area where the E4 and Essingeleden pass by the Karolinska University Hospital in Solna, and will serve as a temporary solution to ensure a seamless flow of traffic in this highly congested area. There are several reasons why the national road authorities and the contractor Svevia chose to build the bridge in wood, but the main reasons are the time aspect and the environmental benefits. Financial considerations were also quite influential in the decision to build the bridge in wood.

– Svevia chose Moelven because of an active involvement in the planning phase and a competitive price right from the start. For us the cost was critical if we were going to get the contract, particularly when Moelven’s share is so large, says financial planner Sigge Breisand at Svevia.

– An order this size is proof that the industry is seriously starting to see wood as an attractive alternative material for use in major infrastructure projects, says Roger Simonsson, Managing Director at Moelven Töreboda.

The wooden bridge is one of the largest of it's type in Scnadinavia and will show Moelven Töreboda’s capacity to take on major projects such as building bridges, arenas and other major load-bearing structures.
Moelven Töreboda will start delivering the first sections of what will become a 181.5-metre long bridge across E4 and Essingeleden in September 2010. One expects that more than 80 trailer-loads will be needed to transport the ready-made sections up to Solna. The bridge will be completed in February 2011.

It’s not just the length of the bridge at Solna that is spectacular. In addition to the two 8-metre wide road bridges with two lanes running parallel in each direction, the bridge will feature separate bridges for pedestrians and bicyclers on both sides. The former will be 2.5 metres in width, and the latter will be 5.5 metres. In all, the project involves 363 metres of paths for pedestrians and bicyclers in both directions. A total of 2200 cubic metres of glulam will be needed to build the bridge, and all the sections will be manufactured at Moelven Töreboda’s manufacturing facilities in Töreboda and in Tidan.