While planning minimal new constructions to reduce costs and carbon emissions, the Paris 2024 Olympics represented an opportunity for the host municipalities to create better connections between existing neighbourhoods and the Olympic venues. Among other projects, the replacement of a footbridge non accessible to persons with reduced mobility and an unreliable moveable bridge with a new accessible pedestrian and cycle crossing over the Canal Saint-Denis was meant to link the Stade de France to the residential areas Francs-Moisins and Bel-Air. Following a proposal of the design team who challenged the initial brief, the deck of one bridge was reused to form the main span of the new footbridge. This paper discusses three key aspects for in situ bridge reuse – architectural transformation of the existing bridge into a footbridge, reuse-specific technical challenges, and construction methodology – using the Lucie Bréard footbridge as a case study. The paper concludes by assessing the environmental impacts of in situ reuse in the Lucie Bréard Footbridge project.
Couret et al. (Wed,) studied this question.