Road Structures

Construction work is underway for Mexico’s Atizapan-Atlacomulco motorway project. The project will now be complete in 2021, although it was originally planned to be ready for traffic in 2016. A series of delays hit the contractor originally working on the project, which then resulted in Mexico’s Secretariat of Communications and Transport (SCT) awarding the contract to another group. The concession for the project is now being handled by Aleatica.

New road building work for two key links in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam is expected to cost US$124 million. Truong Chinh street and Tan Ky Tan Quy street will be widened to boost capacity and cut congestion. The former will feature five to six lanes in either direction once the work is complete. The latter will feature three lanes in either direction once the work is complete. Considerable site clearance work will have to be carried out for the work to go ahead.

A legal battle is facing the UK’s Silvertown Tunnel project. A consortium called STC and comprising Dragados and Hochtief is presenting a legal case over the project. According to STC, there are issues over the way in which the preferred bidder for the work has been selected. The work is for a new tunnel under the River Thames in the east of London. The project is expected to cost £1 billion. The Riverlinx consortium is currently the preferred bidder. Building the tunnel will help reduce congestion. The

New state-owned roads are opening in Russia for 2019. The state-owned road firm Avtodor is to see its network grow by 202km by the end of 2019. The key link opening for traffic will be the new M11 highway connecting capital Moscow with St Petersburg. The final stretches of the M11 are now being finished. Of the 202km to be finished by the end of 2019, around 56km have been built already and 103km will be completed shortly. In all Avtodor has built 1,053km of highways in the last 10 years while the plans cal

Russia’s state-owned road company Avtodor is planning work for the Far-Western Bypass project for Krasnodar. The project is expected to cost US$585.5 million. A number of Russia’s leading construction firms are showing interest in the project. The work will be offered under the PPP model. Avtodor will likely sell a substantial portion of its share of the project to the winning firm.

A new road tunnel connection has been proposed by Georgia. The tunnel would be from Kobi to Gudauri on the highway connecting Mtskheta with Stepantsminda and Lars. This E117 route passes through an area of difficult terrain between Kobi and Gudauri. The tunnel would avoid some of the most challenging, mountainous sections of the present E117 alignment. The E117 is known for having some of the most challenging highway stretches in Europe, with a series of switchbacks close to Ganisi (to the south of the plan

Major new Chinese highway projects are being planned.