Most Ratyński, Wrocław

Most Ratyński carries Augustyn Kośny Street across the Bystrzyca between Ratyn and Jerzmanowo in western Wrocław. A timber crossing built during river-regulation works in the nineteen teens was destroyed in nineteen forty-five; the present reinforced-concrete bridge dates from nineteen seventy-one and has two equal spans.

Most Ratyński carries Augustyn Kośny Street over the Bystrzyca on Wrocław’s western edge, linking Ratyn on the river’s north bank with Jerzmanowo opposite. The crossing first took shape between nineteen twelve and nineteen seventeen, when river-engineering works removed an older weir and installed a timber bridge here. That bridge was destroyed in nineteen forty-five.

Its replacement used reinforced concrete, and the bridge now in service was completed in nineteen seventy-one. The structure is a practical continuous beam bridge: two equal spans, each twenty-seven point eight metres long, make a total crossing of fifty-six metres. Along the deck, seven metres are given to the roadway, while a footway runs along each side.

The whole bridge is nine and a half metres wide, with a bituminous road surface. It is built for everyday connection rather than ceremony, but its history compresses a century of changing river management, wartime destruction, and reconstruction into one short passage over the Bystrzyca.