News

The last section of the 3km İzmit Bay Bridge – now officially the Osman Gazi Bridge - was lifted into place on April 21, according to Turkish media. When open later this summer, the bridge will cut the 70-minute drive around İzmit Gulf, on the Sea of Marmara, to just six minutes.

A slow but steady improvement in machine sales is being observed in Italy as the market recovers. Over the first three months of 2016, 1,977 construction machines have been sold into the Italian market, according to the country’s construction equipment manufacturing association, the UNACEA. This gain in sales represents an increase of 29% compared to the same period in 2015. The sales were for 1,879 earthmoving machines and 76 road machines.

A major Autobahn widening project is planned in Germany for the busy A59 link near Duisburg. This Autobahn currently has four lanes but suffers heavy congestion at peak periods, with frequent delays and jams occurring. As a result, the stretch of the route will be widened to six lanes. The existing Berliner Bridge will also have to be demolished and rebuilt as it will be too narrow for the much wider Autobahn.

The Philippines might separate a 47km six-lane road construction element from a complicated land reclamation and dike development contract recently shunned by preferred bidders. None of the three qualified bidders for the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike public-private partnership deal submitted final bids for the contract. There were concerns over the legality of reclaiming 700 ha of land and whether investors could make money from it.

French company Vinci Autoroutes has been awarded a contract for the construction and operation of the A45 toll motorway linking Lyon to Saint-Etienne. The 50km four-lane project will need €1.2 billion of investment but have an €845 million subsidy. Opening is expected in 2022 and the concession is for 55 years.

Bidding for Paraguay’s route II and route VII Ypacarai-Pastoreo road expansion project has been postponed. Instead Paraguay’s Ministry of Public Works and Communications (MOPC) says that the bidding will commence on 29th June 2016. This delay follows requests by some participants in this process. However, this is the fourth time that the opening of the bidding for the project has been delayed.

Metropistas has been granted a 10-year extension to its PR5 and PR22 toll road concessions in Puerto Rico, up to 20161. Metropistas, a subsidiary of Spanish operator Abertis, signed the agreement with the Puerto Rico Highways and Transportation Authority. The agreement entails payment of $115 million to the Authority and a redistribution of the company's future revenue. PR22 is the 83km San Juan-Arecibo highway and PR5 is the 4km urban San Juan-Bayamon highway.

The new prime minister of the Ukraine, Vladimir Groisman, said the government will boost spending on motorways from $563 million to nearly $750 million this year. A total of 1,700km of roads will be repaired or constructed. Some estimates suggest around 97% of motorways need sort form of repair work.

Crane and lifting manufacturer Palfinger Group has reported a record increase for first quarter revenue, up by 9.1% to €318.8 million (Q1 2015: €292.3 million). EBIT – earnings before interest and tax - also showed an “extraordinarily strong increase” of 28.6% from €23.5 million to €30.2 million, which is a new record as well. “This generated a marked increase in the EBIT margin, which came to 9.5%, as compared to 8% in the first quarter of the previous year.”

According to Russia’s Federal Centre of Project Financing, the cost of building the Russian part of the international route Europe-Western China may exceed US$11.74 billion. Its length will total 2,192km and construction will last about four years. Chinese companies are named among the most promising investors.

A consortium led by Fluor has been selected by South Carolina’s Department of Transportation to design and build the Port Access Road Project in Charleston. The project, in one of the US’s fastest growing container ports, will provide direct access between the proposed marine container terminal to be on the former naval base and Interstate 26.

In the Canadian Rocky Mountains, there was a window of opportunity of only several days before these excavators had to be out of the Kananaskis River ahead of nearby Barrier Dam releasing its water. The provincial Alberta Whitewater Association hired local contractor Foran Equipment to bring in their equipment in to re-work the riverbed after severe flooding in June 2013 washed out the kayaking courses. Southern parts of Alberta province suffered severe storms and massive flooding that month which devastate