$594 million Chilean highway delayed

Bidding for a $594 million Chilean highway is delayed.
By MJ Woof May 6, 2025 Read time: 2 mins
The new highway planned for Chile’s Chacao Island has been delayed once more – image courtesy of © Marcelo Vildosola Garrigo| Dreamstime.com


Bidding for the $594 million highway project linking Chacao and Chonchi in Chile is being delayed. All bids for the project now have to be received by 4th June 2025, with the opening of bids received now scheduled for 2nd July 2025.

The bids were originally supposed to be received by June 2021 but the deadlines have now been set back at least eight times by Chile’s Ministry of Public Works (MOP). The project will widen Route 5 on Chiloe Island, boosting capacity. 

When the long-planned Chacao Bridge connecting the island with the Chilean mainland is finally complete, this is expected to boost tourism, transport, trade and traffic considerably. The alignment runs through Castro, the island’s capital, a world heritage site. With the widened and upgraded highway between Chacao and Chonchi complete, it will be able to cope with the increased vehicle flow rates, as well as boosting safety.

The bridge project itself has been delayed numerous times. The structure was proposed a number of decades ago but then cancelled. It was then revived but the technical challenges involved in spanning a channel noted for its ferocious tides and fierce storms and that is also located in an area that suffering some of the most severe earthquake activity ever recorded has meant the bridge has taken rather longer to build than hoped.

 

 

Road Structures

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