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Planning work for Chile’s Chacao Bridge project is underway at present. The new suspension bridge will provide a link to Chiloe Island and will be the longest structure of its type in Latin America when complete. Because of the risk of major earthquakes in the area, the bridge has to be constructed to cope with substantial shocks. The project is being handled by the Consorcio Puente Chacao consortium and has been in the design phase since February 2014. Chile’s Ministry for Public Works wants to ensure that

The government of Finland’s autonomous Åland will build a 0.5km bridge to connect the islands of Degerö with Gripö, according to the newspaper Nya Aland. Work will also include improvements to the harbour in the town of Fogla on Degero and a new road on Gripo. Around €40 million will be needed for the work.

A recent survey by Sweden’s National Audit Office (Riksrevisionen) shows that the Transport Administration (Trafikverket) needs better data to make road maintenance more cost effective. There is a lack of data on the type of road damage and to what sections of road, according to a report in the daily Svenska Dagbladet. But the National Audit Office also noted that the administration is underfunded, making it less likely that maintenance would be done at the best price for the taxpayer and in a timely fashio

Electric drive machines could represent the future for the construction and extraction industries. This is the finding of a new new report from IDTechEx Research. Titled Electric Vehicles for Construction, Agriculture and Mining 2017-2027, the report predicts that electric vehicles for the construction and extraction and agriculture sectors would represent a $81 billion market by 2027. Major manufacturers such as Caterpillar, John Deere and Komatsu are currently building hybrid machines while other smaller

Ethiopia’s road development programme is continuing. Nearly 1,200km of roads have been built in the country in the nine months to the end of the fiscal year at the start of April 2017. Local firms accounted for nearly 610km of road construction according to the Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA). Meanwhile the remaining 590km or so of road construction was carried out by foreign construction firms. The country’s road building programme is still underway with close to 130 projects being carried out. These proje

A loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) will fund work on a highway project in Nicaragua’s capital Managua. The US$136 million financing package was secured by the Nicaraguan Government. This will be used to improve and widen the Pista Juan Pablo II highway, boosting capacity and reducing congestion at peak periods, as well as improving safety for drivers. The work involves widening the route so that it has three lanes in either direction, as well as building five flyovers, installing drainage, cycli

Work on New Zealand’s State Highway 3 will see upgrades to improve capacity and s well as safety. The country’s Ministry of Transport has unveiled a government plan to spend US$94.46 million (NZ$135 million) on the project. The upgrades for State Highway 3 form part of New Zealand’s Accelerated Regional Roading Programme. Meanwhile further planning work has been required to the Mount Messenger bypass before a preferred option for the project can be confirmed. The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) is curre

Florida’s road safety record is giving cause for concern. The stretch of US Highway 1 running through Florida has been identified as having the worst road crash record of any highway in the US. Analysis shows that there have been 1,079 fatal crashes in the last 10 years on the road, which runs for 872km through 13 counties in Florida. Other highways in the US known to have poor records for road safety include US 83 in Texas, US 140 in California, Interstate 40 in Arizona, and US 18 in South Dakota. For US 1

Vietnam is setting out plans for a massive programme of infrastructure investment. International investment is being sought, with many of the projects being planned under the PPP model. Transport will be placed as a top priority, with a budget of US$400 billion having been discussed as Vietnam’s transport spending target for the next 10 years. One of the biggest projects will be for the construction of a new highway connecting Vietnam’s two main cities, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. The two cities are some 1,

Concrete finishing work has started on the completed north approach viaduct of England’s new 2.13km Mersey Gateway project. Over the past three years, around 18,400m³of concrete was used to build the viaduct. When complete near the end of this year, around 60,000 vehicles are expected to use the toll bridge every day, or nearly 22 million vehicles annually.