On 8 September 2023, the Mettingen Bridge in Esslingen am Neckar was ceremoniously inaugurated in the form of a "bridge festival" and officially opened to traffic one day later. This marked the successful completion of one of Esslingen's largest construction projects in recent decades. After two and a half years of construction, Baden-Württemberg's Minister of Transport Winfried Herrmann, District President Susanne Bay, Lord Mayor Matthias Klopfer and numerous guests of honor were able to inaugurate the new link between the districts of Mettingen and Weil/Brühl.

"With its completion, the new Mettinger Bridge blends as harmoniously as possible into its surroundings thanks to its simple design and its appearance is reminiscent of the previous structure" - this is what can be read on the pages of the City of Esslingen am Neckar. In contrast to the previous bridge with a three-lane road, a traffic lane was dispensed  with; instead, a shared bicycle and pedestrian path was installed on the western side.

LAP provided all design phases including site supervision and management for the replacement of the old Hanns Martin Schleyer Bridge. The new steel composite bridge has a two-span plate girder cross-section and, with a total length of 185.96 m, spans of 38.7 - 45 - 60 - 45 m. Due to the inner-city location and complex boundary conditions, an innovative construction method was developed for the Mettingen Bridge, in which the existing superstructure is used on the one hand as a construction aid for the assembly of the steel structure of the new superstructure ("Old helps New"), and on the other hand the steel structure is used for the demolition of the existing superstructure ("New helps Old"). By optimizing the demolition planning in this way, it was possible to achieve a significant simplification of the construction processes and to exploit the advantages of the steel composite construction method.

The City of Esslingen accompanied the construction process in 10 short films:

https://www.esslingen.de/wohnen-und-bauen/bauen/mettinger-bruecke