Road Structures

Romania’s road building programme is moving forward, but perhaps more slowly than the country’s National Company for Highways and Roads (CNADNR) would prefer. At present a total of 733km of highways are open to use in Romania, but new sections measuring up to 260km in all should be ready for traffic by the end of 2017. A further 22km of the A1 highway connecting Orastie with Sibiu is expected to open in the third quarter of 2016. The Deva to Lugoj stretch of the A1 has also to be completed, while a section

A series of major road projects will be carried out by Portuguese contractor Mota Engil in Angola and Brazil. In all the work is worth in excess of US$419 million. The company is building a 10km section of the Via Expressa around capital Luanda, as well as upgrading another key route in the city. Luanda’s population has grown significantly in recent years and many existing roads are now proving unable to cope with demand.

An Italian roads company will handle the programme for a major road construction and management project in Iran. Anas International Enterprise (AIE), a subsidiary of Italian state-owned firm Anas, is in charge of the work. This contract is for the construction and management of 1,200km of motorways in Iran. The package of works was awarded by the Iranian Ministry of Roads & Urban Development, with a projected cost of US$3.98 billion in all to construct all the routes required. A feasibility study is planned

A new highway has been constructed on the Caribbean island of Jamaica that will make a dramatic improvement in travel times and road safety for the country

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.

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.

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