September 30, 2008
The Megyeri Bridge in Hungary’s capital city of Budapest was officially opened to vehicular traffic. This 6,109-foot (1,862-meter)-long bridge, which carries the M0 motorway over the River Danube, serves as a link between both of Budapest’s main sections: Buda in the western part of the city; and Pest on the eastern side.
The Megyeri Bridge also has the distinction of being Hungary’s first cable-stayed river bridge. The individuals attending the Tuesday dedication ceremony for this bridge included Ferenc Gyurcsány, who was prime minister of Hungary from 2003 to 2009.
Two years earlier, the then-incomplete bridge was formally given its name after an online public vote for that name had been conducted by Hungary’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Transport. The vote attracted worldwide attention from a variety of people, including American comedian and television host Stephen Colbert.
The origin of the name ultimately assigned to the bridge can be traced to the Megyer tribe that settled in that region of present-day Hungary during the 10th century. In addition, “Megyer” is the shared suffix of the names of each of the two neighborhoods of the city that are directly connected by the bridge – Békásmegyer within the district of Óbuda-Békásmegyer in Buda; and Káposztásmegyer in Pest’s district of Újpest.
Photo Credit: Civertan (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/deed.en)
For more information on the Megyeri Bridge, please check out https://structurae.net/en/structures/megyeri-bridge
Transportation History 