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The "Eiffel footbridge" or "Saint-Jean footbridge" is a former metal railway bridge over the Garonne in Bordeaux.

Built between 1858 and 1860, it was designed by Stanislas de Laroche-Tolay, with Paul Régnauld, chief engineer, and his young collaborator Gustave Eiffel in charge of the works.

Within the framework of the Euratlantique project, the footbridge will be used for pedestrians and cyclists.

History
The bridge linked the networks of two railway companies: the Compagnie des Chemins de fer du Midi and the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans. Initially, passengers had to get off at the on the right bank of the Garonne and travel to the Bordeaux-Saint-Jean station, on the left bank, by the Pont de pierre or ferry.

The bridge was designed in 1858 by, an engineer from the Ponts et Chaussées, with Paul Régnauld as chief engineer of the Compagnie des Chemins de fer du Midi and Gustave Eiffel, then a young engineer aged 26, who was in charge of the construction site. Gustave Eiffel was particularly concerned with the foundations of the structure, proposing his idea of a compressed air foundation technique for the construction of the tubular piers (Triger method). Gustave Eiffel was the author of a study on this new technique, Le fonçage par pression hydraulique des piles3. This success earned Eiffel his first recognition in the world of steel construction. Gustave Eiffel reused this technique in particular in 1887 for the construction of the Eiffel Tower. On the Seine side, the foundations of the tower were located in a former branch of the Seine that had been filled in. In order to ensure that the workers could work in good conditions, four airtight metal caissons were used.



The metal footbridge is a straight bridge made of assembled and riveted puddled iron sheets with long horizontal beams stiffened by St. Andrew's crosses. The bridge is 509.69 metres long with a deck width of 8.60 metres. It rests on 6 masonry piers and 2 abutments for access to the structure.

The work was directed by Mr. Charles Nepveu fils, the company's representative in Bordeaux, by Mr. Gustave Eiffel, head of the bridge company, and by Mr. Haussen, the works manager4. The work began on 15 September 1858 and was completed in August 1860. The bridge was opened for use on 1 September 1860 after the load tests on 13 August5. It was inaugurated on 25 August 1860. Le Monde illustré of 25 August 1860 acknowledged the aesthetics of the Saint-Jean footbridge, thanked Mr Stanislas de Laroche-Tolay and Mr Régnault and quoted: "Mr Gustave Eiffel, head of the company's department, whose precocious talent gives rise to brilliant hopes". The footbridge seen from the Saint-Michel spire.

In 1862 a pedestrian bridge was added on the downstream side of the structure. This had become dangerous and was dismantled in 1981. It was this addition that gave the name "Passerelle Saint-Jean" and then, with Eiffel's fame, the name "Passerelle Eiffel" to this railway bridge6.

The Eiffel bridge had only two lanes with a speed limit of 30 km/h for the last two years, which created a bottleneck responsible for the saturation of traffic to and from the north of France. As part of the removal of the Bordeaux rail bottleneck, a second four-lane bridge was built by Réseau ferré de France. It was opened to rail traffic on 11 May 2008 after the last traffic on the bridge was on 8 May 20087. The 4 lanes were fully commissioned in 2010.

Construction Incident
Gustave Eiffel, who was working on the bridge, saved the life of a worker who had fallen into the Garonne by diving into the river to pull him out before he drowned.

Future of the bridge
After the construction of the new viaduct adapted to the passage of high-speed trains, it was envisaged to demolish the obsolete Eiffel footbridge8. However, the intervention of the UNESCO Director of the World Heritage Centre, Francesco Bandarin, made it possible to halt the demolition project planned for the summer of 2008 and to initiate a discussion on solutions for preserving the structure9. Thus the Minister of Culture and Communication, Christine Albanel, in conjunction with the Mayor of Bordeaux, Alain Juppé, decided to place the bridge under the procedure for classification as a historic monument10.

In the spring of 2009, Prefect Francis Idrac chaired the regional commission for heritage and sites. This commission came out in favour of registering the Eiffel footbridge as a historic monument. Thus the footbridge should be preserved and transformed into a recreational area11.

The footbridge was finally classified as a historic monument by order of 22 February 201012,13. The architect Jean de Giacinto, in collaboration with the visual artist David Durand, has designed a lighting scheme for the structure14.

In July 2020, the future use of the footbridge has not yet been officially decided15. It could become a pedestrian and bicycle crossing as part of the Euratlantique project16. In 2019, Réseau ferré de France, the current owner of the structure, is undertaking major conservation work to repair the damage caused by rust, repainting it in a darker anthracite grey than that which covered it previously, before handing it over to a local authority responsible for its maintenance6.