Road Structures

The first agreements for Amsterdam’s proposed underground highway have now been reached. These have been made by the Dutch Minister for the Environment and Transport as well as Amsterdam local authority and the province of North-Holland. Under the agreed terms, the A10 highway will feature 12 lanes of traffic in four 1.2km tunnels under the capital, Amsterdam. The project will also include building metro and rail lines underground.

A bridge collapse at the weekend on Borneo Island in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan has injured 39 people and killed 11, while at least 30 are missing and presumed drowned. The entire deck of the 720m long suspension bridge collapsed, plunging a bus as well as trucks, cars and motorcycles into the Mahakam River. The bridge was completed in 2002 but suffered serious damage to one of its supports last year when it was struck by a coal carrying barge and has been hit on several previous occasions by vessels plyin

The EU is warning Bulgaria that €200 million in funding for the second Danube bridge project may be withdrawn if the work is not finished by the close of 2010. The EU is now considering whether to extend the projects deadline and the contractor building the bridge estimates that the work will not be completed until mid-2011. If funding is withdrawn, Bulgaria's Ministry of Transport hope to seek some financing from the European Investment Bank as well as the Bulgarian state budget.

Funding for a road project in Spain is being set out by contractor Sacyr. The savings banks Caixanova and Unicaja will provide the funding, which will allow work to be completed on a 24.5km stretch of the AP-46 toll road linking Malaga and Alto de Las Pedrizas as to date only half of the work has been finished on the €367 million project. A further €200 million is required, with Sacyr providing the rest from its own sources.

Serbia’s Corridor 10 project, seen as key to the country’s future economic development, is 20 years behind schedule. With construction delayed and the matter being debated, the Serbian Ministry for Infrastructure, which reported the schedule delay, says the country is working as fast as possible, with 22km being built/year. The corridor will connect the country with its neighbours and provide an important route for through traffic.

A new 1.5km tunnel to carry vehicle traffic, and estimated to cost €130 million, is being planned in the Finnish capital Helsinki. The tunnel would run under the Kalasatama area, and is the latest of several tunnelling projects under Helsinki. A major utility tunnel network system was started some years ago with the aim of reducing roadworks and congestion.

Questions are being asked in the Netherlands following the news that twin road tunnels planned to form part of the new 7km stretch of the A4 highway between Delft and Schiedam will not meet EU safety regulations. The Dutch Commission for Tunnel Safety says that the link, which has a total of eight lanes, will not meet the EU regulations, which were toughened after a series of tunnel disasters in Austria and Switzerland. Instead the commission wants four tunnels to be built, each for two lanes of traffic,

A new section of Western High Speed Diameter (WHSD) highway from the Ring Road (KAD) to the Hyundai plant in Kamenka, has been opened to traffic in St Petersburg. The WHSD and KAD interchange will be completed by 2012 when the entire third phase of the highway will be built. The US$7.23 billion WHSD Tollway in the city is sponsored by the Federal Road Agency and it is said to be one of the most important means of solving the city’s transport problems. It is a strategic investment project to develop the ci