News

Work has started on a 5km extension, including a 1.1kkm tunnel under the Weser River, to Germany’s A281 motorway. The project around the northwestern city of Bremen will connect the A281 with the A27 by 2024 and cost around €345 million. Bremen will contribute €1 million.

Almost €348 million will be needed for a 32km extension to Poland’s A2 motorway from Biala Podlaska to Terespol, near the border with Belarussia. A tender for a design and build contract is expected to be called in 2020. But funding is still not for certain under the National Road Construction Programme that looks at work until 2023. Recently, a €1.3 million contract was signed with Multiconsult Polska to prepare an investment plan. The A2 runs from west to east through central Poland, from the Pol

Construction work on the planned tunnel for the Polish islands of Uznam and Wolin will commence in 2021. The islands lie on Poland’s Baltic Coast and this €184 million tunnel project is intended to improve transport connections in the area. The ferries used at present are ageing and are no longer able to cope adequately with the number of vehicles using the crossing. Up to 11,000 vehicles/day make the crossing during peak summer months, with around 2 million vehicles/year making the trip by ferry at present

A new proposal for congestion charging in Los Angeles has been put forward as a possible solution to the city’s traffic woes. The CEO of the Los Angeles Metro system has suggested that a congestion charge for drivers could be used to allow riders to use the city’s transit system for free. Under the proposed scheme, drivers would be charged for entering certain districts of the city at peak travel periods. The proposal has been put forward as a way of smoothing out transport ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games.

Italian contractor Itinera will build the new 99m-long and 31m-wide Skurusunds Bridge near Stockholm in Sweden. Trafikverket, the Swedish transport administration, awarded the €75 million contract to Itinera, part of Gruppo Gavio. The new bridge will be parallel to the existing bridge which will remain. It handles around 52,000 vehicles daily, many of them commuting to and from Stockholm. Work will include improvements to traffic junctions at Skuru and Björknäs. The four-lane steel bridge will have

Cambodia’s capital’s key connection construction contract is commencing. Work is now underway for the Phnom Penh ring road project. The new ring road will measure 53km long and funding for the US$273 million project is being provided jointly by the Cambodian Government and Chinese Government. Building the new ring road will take around 42 months and the new route should open to traffic in late 2021. The studies into the new route are being carried out by the Chinese specialist Guangzhou Wanan Construction S

Volvo CE says it will launch ranges of all-electric compact excavators and compact wheeled loaders. While a number of other firms already offer electric machines for these categories, Volvo CE is taking the further step of halting development of new diesel-driven machines for these categories. A number of all-electric machines are due to be unveiled at the bauma 2019 exhibition, with further models then being introduced in stages over the following year. The compact excavators will be from the EC15-EC

Planning work is being carried out for a major interstate redesign project in Miami, Florida. The US$802 million project involves the redesign of I-395 and surveying activities are now commencing. The I-395/SR 836/I-95 Project is being carried out in partnership between the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX). The work will be carried out between State Road (SR) 836 beginning at NW 17 Avenue and continuing through the SR 836/I-395/I-95 (Midtown) Intercha

Construction of the WestConnex project in New South Wales, Australia is facing criticism over a lack of accountability over the work. The US$11.85 billion (A$16.8 billion) project is intended to improve transport in and around the city of Sydney and involves building a 33km tolled motorway. The work is costly and complex, with much of the route being built in tunnels and this is Australia’s largest road project. However criticism has been levelled at the state government for not considering a number of opti

A controlled explosion demolished the eastern span of the old cantilever Tappan Zee Bridge across the Hudson River near New York City. The bridge, nearly 5km long, was opened in 1955 to carry traffic between the southern New England area and other regions west of the Hudson. Around 140,000 vehicles used the bridge daily. But the old bridge had deteriorated substantially and would have been too expensive to maintain or keep open for lighter traffic use. It became redundant after the new bridge of the

India’s road network and poor safety presents a major hazard. Low levels of seatbelt use by vehicle occupants in India has been identified as one of India’s road safety problems. Official data from the Indian Government states that 26,896 people died in road crashes in the country due to non-use of seatbelts in 2017. Of those who died, 16,876 were passengers. Meanwhile a further 61,942 people suffered injuries because they were not wearing seatbelts. And children are amongst those particularly at risk on t

Concern is being expressed in the US over the correlation between cannabis use and crashes.