Roads Authority Orders Completion of Bridge Prior to LRT Inauguration

The Addis Abeba City Roads Authority (AACRA) has ordered the China Road & Bridge Corporation (CRBC) to finish a bridge passing above the tracks of the Light Railway Transit (LRT) at Beklo Bet on the Debre Zeit Road before January 2015.

The bridge will be part of the Lideta Tsebel-African Union-Meskel Flower road and will be eight metres high and 209m long. The AACRA wants it to be completed before the inauguration of the LRT, according to Ahmedin Busser (Eng), contract road construction & supervision head at the Authority.

The CRBC has started making preparations, including arranging a detour for vehicles with construction blocks in the road, but progress is being challenged by rights of way issues along the way, said a source close to the project.

Clearing work is already underway, including the demolition of the old building that once housed Ethiopia Amalgamated Ltd, now owned by the Agency for Government House (AGH).

The road from Lideta Tsebel to Meskel Flower will be 5.6kms long; initially, it was designed to be 20m wide, but that has now changed to 25 to 30m, with three lanes on either side, as well as pavements.

In some areas, the AACRA had to strike  a compromise with residents who had come up with their own alternative design to minimise the right of way issues, leading to a different design than the originally conceived one, said Ahmedin.

From February 2013 to February 2014, the authority has paid 24.8 million Br for 25 households in compensation; there are many more houses that remain, whose compensation has yet to be calculated, says Ahmedin.

The contract for the project was signed by the CRBC two years ago for 388 million Br and was planned to be completed in July 2014. Nearly two months after that deadline, however, the CRBC has finalised just 34pc of the total.

The CRBC is one of the four largest state owned enterprise in China undertaking road, bridge, railway, ports and expressway projects. It has 50 branch offices around the world. Its subsidiary, the China Communication Construction Company (CCCC), built and delivered the Addis Abeba-Adama Expressway on September 14, 2014.

The AACRA has allocated 6.6 billion Br to add just over 600kms to the city’s road network during the current 2014/15 fiscal year. The city currently has 4671km of road, which it wants to increase to 5275km – a coverage increase from 17.5 to 19.8pc, with a long term plan of 25pc coverage by 2020.

The CRBC will first erect the pillars for the bridge, all of which will stand beyond the pavements on either side, according to the source. Earth work is already underway.

 

 


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