Archive for the ‘Road tunnels’ Category

With construction work almost at an end on the Victoria Tunnel in Auckland, New Zealand, contractors are now confident that two out of three lanes inside the completed tunnel will be open to through traffic by the end of November. If all goes well, the final stage of the project will be finished by the end of March next year.

Construction work first started on the Victoria Tunnel in November 2009. The project kicked off almost a year ahead of schedule and at the time a project completion date was set for mid 2012, but with work on the tunnel almost completed, the project is nearly a year ahead of schedule.

One important aspect of the Victoria Tunnel project is that tunnelling work has affected the historic Birdcage Hotel and in order to minimise potential damage to the building, the structure has been placed on runway beams and shifted to a different location while tunnelling work takes place. This job first began last September, but before the final stage of tunnelling in an area south of the hotel can commence, the historic building will have to be restored to its former location.

The 450 metre long tunnelling project is costing around $340 million to build and more than 400 workers have been employed on the job. However, despite the complexities of the project, the tunnelling contractor has enjoyed an enviable safety record and there have been no serious accidents on site since the project’s inception.

There are only another 20-30 metres of tunnelling work to and the entrance portal is already in sight. Once the Birdcage Hotel has been restored, a sewerage diversion put in place will be removed and the final stage will begin.

The completed tunnel will help to ease the traffic problems for more than 160,000 drivers who use the route every day.

With a final cost of 804 million Euros, the Dublin port Tunnel now has the dubious distinction of being the most expensive piece of infrastructure in Ireland. Extensive delays have been blamed for the 50% increase of costs on the project: the original budget for the tunnel project was set for 535 million Euros, but according to documents seen by the Irish Independent newspaper, costs had begun to spiral out of control less than fifteen months before the official opening of the port tunnel.

One of the main reasons for the costs overruns was a claim for additional payments made by the main contractor. He cited contract variations, time delays and the increased cost of materials as a reason for claiming extra money on top of the original agreed budget.

The main contractor on the Dublin Port Tunnel was a joint venture consortium made up of a Japanese company, Nishimatsu Construction Company; a UK based company, Mowlem and Company; and an Irish civil engineering firm, Irishenco Construction.

According to the press report, the main contractor initially put in high claims for additional payments, but these were contested and following careful examination of the evidence, the amounts claimed were significantly reduced. In the wake of the cost overrun issues, a new form of contract has been devised for future major road projects in Ireland. This will be based on an agreed price at the beginning of the contract and any future cost overruns will have to be met by the main contractor.

The twin bore Dublin Port tunnel first opened in 2006—six years after construction work first began. It was designed to take some of the heavy goods traffic away from Dublin city centre via the M1 link between the city and the port.

Following a recent report on the benefits of building a third tunnel across the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland, an unexpected rise in the overall costs of the planned project has been revealed. Previous reports had put the overall cost of the project at $3.7 billion, but the new study says the cost will now be around $5.3 billion, which is a fairly significant rise.

At the moment, the decision has yet to be taken on whether a bridge of tunnels are going to be the most appropriate and cost effective method of crossing the Waitemata Harbour. The original plan was for tunnels to be constructed beneath the harbour, but this time round experts have been looking into the viability of a bridge as well as tunnels. Interestingly, it has been revealed that a bridge is actually the cheaper option as not only would it cost less to construct, it would take less time to build and be cheaper to maintain in the long term.

But despite what would appear to be some very obvious benefits to building a bridge as opposed to tunnels, the transport minister has said that there will be a public consultation process before any final decision is made on the project.

The Mayor of Auckland believes that tunnelling is the better option as he thinks tunnels are future proof since tunnelling technology is improving all the time. He is in favour of a combined system of rail and road tunnels and he says that whatever system is chosen by the city, capacity for rail is a very important consideration. A cycle route and pedestrian crossing would also be included.

Back in 2008, a feasibility study looked at 159 different potential routes, but the final preferred option was for a tunnelling project involving four tunnels—two for roads and two for a railway line.

A new tunnel through Mount Vadlaheidi is in the pipeline for Iceland and the company, responsible for the construction work was founded at the beginning of this month. The Icelandic Road Administration owns a 51% share of the new company, Vadlaheidagong, and the other 49% share is owned by Greid leid.

Work on the planned tunnel is expected to begin later on this year and a budget of 64 million Euros has been set for the project.

The Icelandic Road Administration has said that the tunnelling project will pay for itself over 25 years via the introduction of road tolls and if there is still an outstanding amount owing at the end of this period, further tolls will be payable for drivers passing through the tunnel.

However, the Icelandic Automobile Association are concerned that the cost estimates for the project are too conservative and they believe that the tunnelling project is likely to cost a lot more. They also feel that the planned road toll also needs to be higher in order to cover the costs of the tunnel more effectively.

An international preliminary selection for preferred contractors will be announced shortly and tenders for the tunnelling project will be requested within the next couple of months. Vadlaheidagong will evaluate all tender submissions shortly after the submittal process has ended and negotiation for the contracts will commence thereafter.

Construction work on the Vadlaheidi tunnel is expected to take between two and three and a half years to reach completion. The completed tunnel will be 7.4 kilometres long and 9.5 metres in diameter. If all goes well, the tunnel through Mount Vadlaheidi should be open to traffic by the end of 2014 and will enable drivers to avoid the dangerous Vikurskard Mountain Pass.

Rocksy, Australia’s largest tunnel boring machine, has achieved the first breakthrough on the 6.7 kilometre Airport Link in Brisbane. There are two 12.45 meter diameter Herrenknecht EPBMs working on the tunnelling project and the breakthrough marks the all-important half way point of the 2.5 kilometre tunnel that will end in Lutwyche.

The two TBMs working tirelessly on the tunnelling project, Rocksy and Sandy, have been operating around the clock, seven days per week. On average, they have made progress at a rate of 110 metres per week. So far, more than 9 kilometres of tunnel has been dug across the entire project, of which 2.2 kilometres is attributable to Rocksy and Sandy.

Since it was only in February last year that Rocksy and Sandy were in bits and in transit from Germany, the progress made by the tunnelling team has been astounding and the Minister for Infrastructure and Planning, Stirling Hinchcliffe, congratulated the tunnelling team on their sterling efforts.

Pre-cast concrete segments have been used to make up the tunnel lining rings as the TBMs advanced forward, each one weighing in at a hefty seven tonnes, and already backup work has commenced in the wake of Rocksy and Sandy, including the construction of smoke ducts and tunnel cross passages. The next stage will be the installation of ventilation fans, tunnel safety systems and traffic management devices.

Sandy, the other TBM working on the project is expected to break through next month and both TBMs are on track to complete the 2.5 kilometre journey by July. Once completion has been reached, the massive cutterheads used by each TBM will be left buried underground to avoid the problem of removing them.

The Brisbane Airport Link is scheduled to open in 2012 and will provide a motorway connection from Brisbane city to the airport and suburbs to the north.

Engineers are currently carrying out the last finishing touches on the new Tyne Tunnel near Gateshead. It has been two and half years since construction work on the Tyne Tunnel first started and with opening scheduled for the end of February, final checks and tests are essential before the tunnel is fully operational and open to traffic.

Much of the testing carried out over the weekend was safety related. A whole series of emergency exercises were completed to test the current safety procedures and overall response of emergency responses. These tests included one full-scale emergency exercise designed to replicate what might happen if a major disaster took place inside the Tyne Tunnel. The purpose of the extensive testing procedures was to see if the in-built safety systems integrated with the emergency services as intended.

A fixed fire suppression system is amongst the many safety systems installed inside the new Tyne Tunnel. Should a fire occur for any reason inside the tunnel, the fire suppression system will release a mist of water droplets into the air that should help drivers escape a fire as well as minimise the damage to the tunnel.

As a result of such safety measures, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue have fully endorsed the safety systems in place and the new Tyne Tunnel is now believed to be the safest road tunnel in the UK.

Construction on the new Tyne Tunnel has been carried out as part of the Tyne Crossing Project and includes an upgrade of the original tunnel across the River Tyne. Completion is planned on the project by the end of 2011. The new Tyne Tunnel will be open for traffic at the end of this month and the old tunnel is expected to close for planned refurbishment works very soon.

The Danish parliament has approved revised plans for a new underwater tunnel to be built between Denmark and Germany. The original plans were for a road and rail bridge, but these have now been rejected on the basis that a tunnel is more environmentally friendly.

Once completed, the underwater tunnel will provide a road and rail connection between the Danish island of Lolland and the German island of Fermarn. Construction work will begin on the 11.6 mile tunnel in 2014 and completion is planned for 2020.

Although some environmental campaigners have expressed concerns that the planned underwater tunnel will damage the habitats of whales and dolphins, the Danish Transport Minister is keen for work on the tunnel to start as soon as possible.

Denmark is paying for the majority of the construction work on the underwater tunnel as it stands to gain the most from the project. The budget is around 5.1 billion Euros and Denmark plans to apply from subsidisation grants from the European Union to cover some of the costs, although the majority of the cost will be recouped within thirty years via tolls on the crossing. Although Denmark is responsible for most of the cost of the project, Germany will have to pay for the tunnel to be connected to local infrastructure on the German side, and this is expected to cost somewhere in the middle of 800 million and 1.7 billion Euros.

Once the new underwater tunnel has been completed, journey times between Copenhagen and Hamburg will be reduced to only three hours, as the route will be much shorter than the current existing routes between the two countries. Commuters will also be able to enjoy an easy route from Germany to Sweden by crossing into Denmark and using the Oresund Bridge to travel to the Swedish Coast.

Construction workers tunnelling their way beneath the Victoria Park viaduct on the $400 million Victoria Park motorway project in Auckland designed to ease traffic congestion at a notorious bottleneck black spot, are today celebrating following a digger breakthrough of the central wall of earth. This important milestone represents the halfway point on the multi million dollar Victoria Park project, and is the final part of the tunnel excavation section from one end to the other.

Spokesperson for the construction team, NZTA state highway manager, Tommy Parker, today reported that the men were extremely happy to have reached the halfway point and it was a very exciting day for the team. As the men celebrated their progress, the digger was still scraping the last remaining sections of the earth wall beneath Beaumont Street.

Construction work on the three lane 700m trench first began twelve months ago and when it finally reaches completion, the motorway upgrade will help to free up the four lanes of existing southbound business and freight traffic that currently pass beneath Victoria Park, heading towards the Harbour Bridge. This amounts to approximately 80,000 vehicles and the new section of the three lane motorway will significantly help to ease the congestion that currently causes a major bottleneck in the area.

The first part of the construction work involved tunnelling beneath the existing roads and now that this has been completed, the next stage in the project will be to install strengthening beams to support a roof structure, followed by the installation of lighting, fireproofing and communications. Engineers are hoping to have this stage completed by Christmas, and all being well the motorway upgrade will be completed and open to the public within the next eighteen months.