An everyday tram journey here once ended in a dramatic plunge. On 14 April 1991, a number 10 tram travelling toward Leśnica left the rails and fell from the bridge onto the riverbank. Stones wedged into the tram tracks caused the crash.
This is the old Pilczycki Bridge, a crossing of the Ślęza linking the Pilczyce side with Żerniki along Lotnicza and Kosmonautów streets. While you stand safely on the pavement, notice how the tram rails run directly within the roadway: this is a combined road-and-tram bridge, with the two tracks carrying trams toward Leśnica. The present structure dates from 1959.
It has two steel spans, measures 24.2 metres long, and has a granite-block surface beneath traffic and footfall. A newer Pilczycki Bridge was later built north of here. That change left this older crossing mainly for trams and local vehicle access, while ordinary road traffic moved to the newer route. In the Breslau period, bridges over this river carried the German name Lohebrücke—simply a bridge on the Ślęza, rather than a unique name for this particular crossing.
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