Road Structures

New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell has given the go-ahead for the US$10.92 billion (AUD 11.5 billion) Westconnex motorway project in Sydney, Australia. A total of $1.4 billion (AUD 1.5 billion) has been pledged by Prime Minister Tony Abbott over four years, while $1.68 billion (AUD 1.8 billion) has been committed by the state government. The private sector will channel the remaining fund through tolls. A toll for using the 33km motorway will be reportedly capped at $7.21 (AUD 7.70). With its constru

India’s Inter Ministerial Group (IMG) has proposed that the country’s central government allocate more than €668 million (INR 56.1 billion) for the Amritsar-Delhi-Kolkata Industrial Corridor (ADKIC). The 15-year funding would develop an Integrated Manufacturing Cluster in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Jharkhand, Haryana, West Bengal, Bihar and Uttarakhand where the 150km-200km corridor passes. The ADKIC’s 20-city spread will be aligned to the Eastern Development Freight Corridor (EDFC) and will use the Public P

The Dutch government is to invest €2.8 billion to lay 149km of new roads in 2014, according to minister for transport Melanie Schultz. A further €300 million is to be invested in the usability of roads. This will focus on ways of spreading traffic out on key highways and testing technology for potential use in traffic information and rush hour avoidance projects.

Completion of the final stretch of the D8 highway in the Czech Republic will be delayed. The 4.7km section of highway in the Czech region of Usti Nad Labem Oldrich Bubenicek will not be built by 2015 as planned originally. A landslide that occurred near Litochovice in June 2013 is the reason for the delay. Additional geotechnical surveys now have to be carried out before work can commence to to repair the damage cause by the landslide. It is possible that the results of the survey work will show that the ro

A consortium is to handle the concession package for Malaysia’s Kinrara-Damansara Expressway (Kidex) project. The concession and contracting consortium comprises the construction companies Emrail and Zabima Engineering and Construction. The concession for the 13.5km stretch of road is being agreed with the Malaysian Government. Construction work commenced in May 2011 and will take close to three years to complete. The project is costing close to US$700 million while the concession package is for a period of

The construction of China’s US$3.85 billion (CNY 23.59 billion) Ya'an-Kangding highway will be completed and put into operation during 2017. Meanwhile, the environmental impact assessment (EIA) report for the 133.97km highway project is said to have been completed.

The concession company responsible for Brazil’s BR-101/RJ motorway is planning to expand and improve the route by investing US$482.39 million (BRL 1.1 billion) in it by 2018 and $1.44 billion (BRL 3.3 billion) by 2033. Autopista Fluminense has already invested $320.09 million (BRL730 million) in the motorway and is advancing with more projects since it has received all necessary environmental licences.

The company behind the proposed Fehmarn Belt link crossing the Baltic Sea between Denmark and Germany will create the link with an immersed tunnel, despite a new environmental survey showing that a drilled tunnel would be more environment-friendly.

The ICA-Meco consortium has been asked by Panama's Public Works minister, Jaime Ford, to speed up work on the US$237 million Domingo Diaz highway project in Tocumen. The project is scheduled for completion in July 2014 but is currently 37% complete. The minister asked workers to go the extra mile in their work rate, in order to reduce the suffering of the 467,296 people that use the road daily. The work on the 12.8km road also includes three vehicle access points, a bridge over the Matias Hernandez river, a

A plan to repair 10 damaged bridges in Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Northern Province has been submitted to the Cabinet for approval, according to PNG works minister Francis Awesa. The $53.17 million (PGK 130 million) project will be funded by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and the PNG government.