Road Structures

A major highway upgrade project in Azerbaijan is receiving fuding from the World Bank. Under the terms of the deal the World Bank has approved financing worth US$140 million for the widening of the Baku-Shamakhi highway. The highway will be widened to four lanes, increasing capacity.

A flyover has collapsed in the Indian city of Kolkata. Reports from the local press suggest 14 fatalities and upwards of 150 people being trapped in the wreckage. The Times of India reports that the flyover was under construction at the time of its collapse and the reason for the structural failure has yet to be determined. The flyover is located in a densely populated area in the north of the city and the death toll looks likely to climb.

The replacement of a very busy road bridge in China’s capital Beijing has been carried out successfully. Due to the volume of traffic using the bridge during week days, the work had to be carried out quickly so as to minimise traffic disruption. But despite being carried out in the centre of Beijing, the replacement work for the Sanyuan Bridge just took 43 hours from start to completion.

A new tolled bridge link is planned to connect the US states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The structure will carry traffic on Interstate 95 and span the Delaware River. Construction work for the new bridge is expected to begin next year and take four years to complete, with the new tolled link is expected to open to traffic during 2019. The new crossing will replace the ageing Scudder’s Falls Bridge and this wider and safer structure is expected to cost around US$334 million. The toll charges have yet to

Taiwan’s Ministry of Transportation and Communications says that work on the Suhua Highway improvement project should go ahead as planned. The construction work on the project is expected to be carried out from 2017 to 2019. The revamped highway will improve connections between Hualien county and Yilan county. The construction work is costing in the region of US$1.51 billion to carry out.

The German Government's new transport investment strategy will see increased spending until 2030. The Ministry for Transport says that the emphasis will be on renovating existing infrastructure, instead of building new projects. Around 70% of investment will be for renovation and improvement projects, compared to 56% in the previous transport strategy. The plan is worth a total of €264.5 billion, an increase of €91 billion over the previous plan, with 49.4% targeted at road projects, 41.3% for rail and 9.3%