Road Structures

The new Bridge of Brotherhood and Unity, also known as Zezelj’s Bridge, across the Danube River in Novi Sad, Serbia, is officially open. The road and rail tied-arch bridge replaces the original bridge of the same name that was built in 1961, named after the designer Branko Zezelj. The designer of the new bridge is Aleksandar Bojović and the contractor was an international consortium of Azvi, Taddei and Horta Coslada. One of the two arches is 177m long and 34m high and the other is 219m long and 42m high.

The contract has been awarded for the Mumbai sea link project in India. The Versova-Bandra Sea Link Project is expected to cost US$987.6 million to build and is should take five years to construct. When complete the 17.7km bridge will be the longest sea crossing in India. The project will be handled by a consortium made up of Astaldi and Reliance Infrastructure under an engineering, procurement and construction package. The deal was awarded by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation.

Slovakia's transport ministry says the 7.5km Visnove tunnel near Zilina, part of the D1 motorway, will be delayed by two years to open in 2022. The recent announcement came as the ministry agreed to an extension to the construction permit held by Salini Impregilo for work on the twin-tube tunnel. The design-and-build contract worth about €410 million was assigned to the Salini Impregilo-led joint venture DUHA in 2014 by the National Highway Company NDS.

Plans are being drawn up for a new structure to replace the Morandi Bridge in Italy, which collapsed recently with disastrous results. The Italian road firm Autostrade per l'Italia (ASPI) has a draft design that features eight supports, unlike the failed Morandi Bridge, which was designed with 11 supports. The new bridge design also includes a deck that features emergency lanes, which were not included on the old Morandi Bridge.

The tender process for a 24km stretch of the Struma motorway project is now underway in Bulgaria. The tender has an estimated value of €447.5 million, with a significant portion of the necessary funding being provided by the EU. This section of the route runs between Kresna and Prupnik, while the project is due for completion in 2023.

In Brazil’s Sao Paulo State the authorities are looking to develop infrastructure projects by offering a series of road concession deals. In all some 1,000km of road concessions are being made available. This includes a number of road sections managed by the state’s road department (DER-SP). The roads being offered as concession include a 120km stretch of the SP-294 route, a 95km section of the SP-304 route and a 6km stretch of the SP-308 route.

A US$174 million road project is now commencing in Puerto Rico. The work will be carried out on the route connecting the PR-30 and PR-18 and involves reworking the road so that it features two reversible lanes. The project is expected to take 24 months in all, with the work being split into five separate phases. Construction of the first section connecting PR-175 with Montehiedra is expected to cost nearly $40 million as this complex stretch will include building four bridges as well as other civils work.