Road Structures

Sunderland’s Northern Spire bridge with its 105m-high central A-frame pylon opens to traffic today after a four-month delay because of poor weather. The bridge opened for pedestrians and cyclists yesterday after three Sunderland-built Nissan vehicles first crossed the bridge during a ceremony to mark completion of the project. Work began in May 2015 and the bridge has been built within its allocated €129 million budget. However, poor weather conditions pushed back the opening of the bridge from this past

Construction work on the Moracica bridge project in Montenegro is now close to completion. Measuring 960m long, the bridge spans the Moraca River Canyon and is the most complex portion of the 41km first section to be built for the new highway connecting Bar with Boljare. Work on the bridge is expected to be complete by April 2019 and the structure is being built using some 30,000m3 of concrete and 5,200tonnes of reinforcing steel. The tallest of the bridge’s five piers will measure 158.5m in height, with

A further delay now faces construction work on New Zealand’s Southern Corridor improvement project. Completion of the work for the project now looks to be delayed for another year. Construction originally commenced in October 2015. The Southern Motorway project Is intended to improve transport from Papakura to Manukau in Auckland and has a pricetag of US$177.85 million (NZ$268 million).

The contract for Israel’s Road 16 project has been awarded to a partnership between the local firm Shapir Engineering and the Italian company Pizzarotti. Construction work is due to commence in 2019 and is scheduled for completion in 2023, with the work expected to cost US$269.2 million. The Route 16 package of works for the engineering team comprises building a 5km road section that includes two tunnel sections and new interchanges.

The Canada-US Thousand Island Bridge system celebrated its 80th birthday in August with presentations and an open house at its US headquarters. The 33.7km three-bridge system over the St Lawrence River took 16 months to build and was completed 10 weeks ahead of schedule. It runs from Collins Landing near Alexandria Bay in the US state of New York to the small town of Ivy Lea in the Canadian province of Ontario. The system connects US Interstate 81 and Canada’s Highway 401, a major motorway between Montre