A bridge turns 25: “It’s just a little water that separates us. And now we’re connected”

The Øresund Bridge has just turned 25. The bridge’s director explains what it’s like to operate it. And which part of the bridge he loves the most.

The Øresund Bridge turned 25 on July 1st, congratulations.

But what does a director do for something as stable as a bridge that just sits where it is?

Politiken has called the bridge’s director Linus Eriksson to find out more.

He has been director for almost five years, but when he was offered the job, he was somewhat skeptical.

“I said no when a headhunter called. A bridge, wasn’t it just a lot of steel and concrete? I was the director of Skånetrafikken, which had 200 trains and 1,000 buses and was a dynamic company. What could a bridge do?”.

But when the headhunter called again after a few weeks and started talking about the bridge’s purpose, as Linus says in corporate English with a Scanian accent, he listened.

The bridge may have been completed, but its purpose, to build – yes, excuse me – a bridge between Sweden and Denmark, is far from complete.

And when Linus Eriksson realized this, he started listening to the headhunter.

He said yes, and on one of the first days of work he came up to the top of a pylon and stood 200 meters high, in the middle of the Øresund, looking down.

“It’s an impressive structure. It’s a mega bridge, the likes of which are few in the world. I’m originally an engineer, I was very fascinated. It may well be just steel and concrete, but the bridge is gigantic and unique,” he says.

Fakta

What, why, how?

This article arose because a user on Bluesky made fun of what the director of a bridge actually does, now that the bridge is built.

A lot turned out.

Have you also wondered about something in your everyday life? How things work or why something happens?

Send an email to sarah.skarum@pol.dk. Maybe we can find an answer to your question.

The enormity of the project is illustrated by the fact that it will take 13 years to repaint the steel parts of the bridge. The uniqueness of the project means that when there are problems with the maintenance of the bridge, the employees often have to solve them themselves. There are no other places in the world that have the same problems.

The maintenance is so extensive that it costs 350 million Danish kroner per year, but even though it is an enormous task, Linus Eriksson and his employees have several tasks. Like the commercial aspect. How do you get more tourists, commuters and freight companies, in addition to the 600,000 regular customers, to use the bridge, and how do you make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

And then there is the third area of work, purpose. The agreement between Sweden and Denmark on the construction of the bridge stated that it should benefit both states and create an Øresund region.

“The bridge is a good start. But when you use it, it creates new challenges. We are constantly trying to make it easier to live and work on both sides of the bridge,” he says.

“It could be border control or the labor market, where you had a tax agreement for taxation of people who live in one country and work in the other, which was old-fashioned. A year ago we got a new one, which was an improvement. But it could easily be even better.”

No hassle about cancellations

He crosses the bridge himself almost every day. He lives in Sweden but works at the head office in Ørestad, but he differs from most other commuters in one way.

When the bridge is closed, he doesn’t complain. He works.

“I would never be able to sleep if the bridge was closed. I started my career in the fire department in Malmö as a fire engineer, and it’s the same with a closed bridge as with a fire. You solve it before you go to bed again,” he says.

“If the bridge closes, Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen will have to cancel operations because the nurses who are supposed to be there cannot come over from Sweden. We are critical social infrastructure and are of great importance. That is what makes the job exciting and interesting and responsible. The bridge just has to work,” he says.

Some days he works his way across the bridge, other days he notices how beautiful the bridge is. He estimates he has at least a few thousand photos of it on his phone in all kinds of weather and from all kinds of angles, but his favorite spot is still the pylon tops:

“You stand in the middle of Øresund and see both the impressive project and how close we are to each other. It’s just a little water that separates us. And now we’re connected.”

Sarah Skarum