News

Construction of the third phase of the Vilnius western bypass may be finished this year, according to a report by Baltic News Network. Remigijus Simasius, mayor of the Lithuanian capital, the said work was ahead of the schedule for opening in the first quarter next year. The section, worth €105 million, will connect the highways of Vilnius–Kaunas–Klaipeda and Vilnius–Panevezys. Aldas Rusevičius, chief executive of Kauno Tiltai - Kaunas Bridges – the general contractor of the third phase, said that

Funding from China will help pay for key road repairs in Angola. The country will benefit from a credit line worth US$1 billion offered by China. The funds will be used to upgrade 17 important road links, although a focus for the repairs will be a stretch of National Highway 321 connecting Dondo with Maria Theresa. The projects form part of Angola’s National Construction and Renovation Plan and will be offered to Chinese road construction firms.

Peru's president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski - who won April’s general election by less than 1% of the popular vote - will continue many of the highway projects started under his predecessor. Kuczynski inherited the projects from Ollanta Humala who could not run again because constitutioinal limits on his terms in office. One of the largest projects is the 3,000km northern international highway from Sullana, a city and urban area of around 440,000, to the border with Ecuador. The co-financed private project

The second phase of Vietnam’s rural bridge building programme will construct around 4,000 bridges, many of them road bridges, and will start next month Nguyen Van Huyen, director of the Directorate for Roads, said many of the bridges will be suspension type and improve communication for around 5,200 communes in 50 provinces. A report by the English-language news agency VietNamNet quoted Nhuyen saying that priority will be given to 63 impoverished districts, many of them home to ethnic minorities.

A South Korean consortium is in line for a US$75 million loan from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) for a project in Kazakhstan. The $900 million project around the city of Almaty will see development of a 66km highway with eight intersections and 21 bridges, according to a report in the Korea Herald. The consortium consists of Korea Expressway and SK Engineering and Construction (SK E&C), noted a report by the Korean news agency Pulse. Other banks that will provide loans to the cons

It’s 1948. The grand scheme of creating an Interstate Highway system in the US is still barely a twinkle in President Dwight Eisenhower’s military eye. Highway construction improved greatly in the late 1950s and early 1960s as the American contractors became more mechanized and therefore efficient at laying roads faster and of better quality. But how did they build a road back then in 1948? Thanks to Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, we have a movie of just how a concrete highway was created. The constr

Grants worth a total of US$800 million have been issued by the US Department of Transportation (USDOT).

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) awarded a US$2.75 million contract for a study to develop the corridor along a stretch of Interstate 635 (I-635) in Dallas. The two-year contract is for schematic, environmental and traffic studies for the construction of access roads along the growing section of highway and was awarded to Michael Baker International. As part of the contract, the Michael Baker team will conduct a number of detailed studies in advance of TxDOT’s plans to add more than 53km of

Mexico has no less than 20 major highway projects currently under construction. Of these, eight of the highway projects should be complete by the end of 2016. The highway projects are being delivered for Mexico’s Secretariat of Communications and Transport (SCT), which is also overseeing the work. In addition to the highway projects, SCT is also overseeing road maintenance and upgrade activities to some 12,900km of federal roads. Another key programme being handled by SCT will see new road links to remote a

Key highway links in Chile are likely to see upgrading, although the operation of the links could change. The country’s Ministry of Public Works (MOP) is keen to see widening work for Ruta 68, a route currently operated by Abertis. However MOP has not revealed if it intends to buy back the Ruta 68 contract from the operator and then put the highway back out to tender, with the new deal then including the widening work. It may prove simpler to strike a new deal with Abertis that includes the necessary highwa

The Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) is to provide support as part of the UK’s new Specialist Professional and Technical Services (SPaTS) framework. The arrangement sees TRL providing road and transport related specialist technical services to Highways England, the Department for Transport and a number of other public sector bodies. TRL will deliver specialist back-up for research and innovation. The four year deal will provide Highways England with technical, commercial and specialist services. TRL is a

The construction of a new interchange to the south east of Casablanca in Morocco will make a substantial reduction in traffic congestion when it is complete. Work started on the interchange in February of this year, once of several major road projects being carried out in the area around the city. The work is expected to take 32 months to complete. The new interchange is much needed as Morocco’s traffic volumes have increased substantially in recent years due to a higher percentage of citizens owning privat