A city divided into two by the Danube river, Budapest, is truly a city of bridges. With eight major bridges spanning the Danube there are many different designs and architectural styles for bridge lovers. The most modern of these bridges is found at the most Northern point of the Capital city of Hungary and it is called the Megyeri Bridge, previously known as the Northern M0 Danube Bridge. It is a cable-stayed bridge connecting Buda (the western side of the city) to Pest (the eastern side of the city) and is truly aesthetically breathtaking. It is Hungary’s fist cable-stayed bridge and is a big part of the M0 highway which is planned to go around Budapest.
The bridge is made up of five parts and has a width of 35 meters and a full length of 1862 meters. Construction on the bridge took approximately two and a half years and it was opened to the public on September 13th 2008 with its official inauguration being held on the 30th of September 2008. The name of the bridge is of special importance as it was the result of a two round internet voting announced by the Ministry of Economy and Traffic. The voting was closely followed by the media and soon became internationally noted. The voting took an American turn when Stephen Colbert, host of the popular American show “The Colbert Report” began to ask for votes in order to have the bridge named after him. After two rounds of voting the clear winner was Stephen Colbert, however, he did not meet the requirements of the committee in that he did not speak fluent Hungarian and that he was still alive. As a result, on September 28th 2006 the final name of the bridge was announced. It was named the Megyeri Bridge by the Hungarian Committee of Geographical names since the bridge connects Kaposztasmegyer and Bekasmegyer.
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