Road Structures

Panama’s Ministry of Public Works (MOP) is spending some US$2.96 billion during its present administration on infrastructure projects. These include the construction of a fourth bridge over the Panama Canal, which will link the Albrook district and the North Corridor. There are four road widening projects planned. The link between the Las Americas bridge and Arraijan will be expanded to eight lanes and the Panamericana road between La Chorrera and San Carlos will be expanded to six lanes. The Omar Torrijos

The World Bank Group is providing funding worth US$500 million for the development of a key transport corridor in the north-west of the country. This comes under the East Africa Regional Transport, Trade & Development Facilitation Project. The general aim of the project to build the corridor is to provide economic and social development for communities in the counties of West Pokot and Turkana. The government of Kenya will contribute the remainder needed for the $676 million project.

Chinese banks are providing US$297 million in loans for road construction in the Kyrgyz Republic. The loan will be used to carry out Phase II of the programme to construct the new North-South road. The project is for the construction of the 96km Aral-Kazarman road and also includes building a 700m stretch of tunnel along the route as part of the works.

Plans are progressing in Kazakhstan for the project to construct the Big Almaty Ring Road. A number of investors are involved in financing the project and are planning to invest US$1.2 billion in the ring road. The contract will include construction and operation of the project. Strong interest has been shown in the project by the EBRD, the Asian Development Bank, IFC, and the Islamic Development Bank. Meanwhile according to Kazakhstan's Committee of Roads, the economic effect of the Western Europe-Western

One of the world’s largest cranes has placed the first steel girder assembly for the approach span of the new NY Bridge, often called the Tappen Zee Bridge in New York. The barge-mounted I Lift NY super crane with its nearly 100m boom slowly picked up the 125m unit from its delivery barge and gently lowered it onto concrete pedestals in the Hudson River, near the Rockland County side of the bridge. The super crane will install even larger sections of the new bridge, some of which weigh around 907tonne

Plans are being considered for either a tunnel or bridge to connect Sri Lanka and India. The preferred route would be from Dhanushkodi in India to Talaimannar on the Sri Lankan island of Mannar. Building this 23km link could cost around US$3.62 billion according to estimates. Spanning the Pak Strait with a bridge might leave such a structure vulnerable to tsunami as well as typhoons however. It is worth noting that Sri Lanka’s south western coast was devastated some years ago by a tsunami precipitated by an

Funding for a major freeway project in Iran could come from foreign sources. The Tabriz-Marand-Bazargan freeway looks likely to be built using foreign investment. A plan for the project has been approved by the Organisation for Investment, Economic and Technical Assistance of Iran (OIETAI). This new freeway forms part of a larger programme of road and highway construction in Iran. The aim is to increase the total length of freeways across the country from the present 2,360km to 5,200km in the next four year

Discussions have been held between Brazil and Paraguay over the plans to build a new bridge between the countries. Work carried out by Construbase-Paulitec was reviewed by officials from the countries at an event held recently in Brasilia. Previous plans for work to start on the bridge had to be put on hold due to financing problems in Brazil. Construction work on the bridge looks set to recommence in August 2015 however.