Underground tunnel could replace London’s Hammersmith flyover

A further US$94.08 million (£60mn) is to be spent on fixing the Hammersmith flyover “monstrosity” in west London, England. Transport for London (TfL) is to fund a second phase of repairs to the structure’s badly corroded arches due to start in October 2013. The flyover was shut to all traffic just before Christmas 2011 to allow initial emergency arch repairs – leading to huge traffic chaos in west London – before being partially reopened a few weeks later. It was not fully opened until late May 2012.

London’s transport authority, Transport for London (TfL) is considering orbital and cross-city road tunnels to help reduce pollution in the capital and create more pleasant environments for the residents of its various districts. “We believe we need to think more ambitiously,” TfL’s Michael Colella, currently lead sponsor for HS2, told the British Tunnelling Society conference in London on Wednesday. “We are looking at taking a significant part of our road traffic and in essence burying it and reusing the

London faces a nail-biting race against the clock to fix Hammersmith Flyover in time for the 2012 Olympics. The flyover, which carries 90 vehicles a day on the A4, the road between central London and the West, including Heathrow airport, has been closed since 23 December after serious defects were found in the 50-year-old structure.

Construction of a Fehmarn Belt Link could start a year from now – more than a year ahead of schedule, according to Danish media reports. The timing was put forward by Holger Schou Rasmussen, chairman of Femernbælt Development, and Kristian Pihl Lorenzen, the Liberal Party spokesman for traffic issues. They reportedly said that a pending environmental court case in Germany that has stalled approval by German authorities won’t hold up construction of the 18km crossing as much as had been feared. As late as