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All Night Long Span-Widening
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| Smoother Traffic at the Penang Bridge coming August 2009 with the upcoming Penang Bridge Projects | |||||||||||||
| The Penang Bridge that has been serving Penangites for the past 20 years has reaches its capacity. Traffic is already in chaos especially during and after office hour. And to use Penang ferry is not an option either as the queue is much longer. So... To solve the whole situation, a stitching work on Penang Bridge begins. | |||||||||||||
| The RM585 million span-widening projects are expected to be completed by August next year. Under the span-widening project, the existing island-bound and Prai-bound dual carriageway lanes will have an additional 4.8m wide on each lane bringing the total lane from the current 2 to 3 each way. | |||||||||||||
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| Penang Bridge | |||||||||||||
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| Widening works on the Penang Bridge | |||||||||||||
| While most Penangites go to sleep, work to widen to Penang Bridge is being carried out diligently. The decision to carry out the job during the night was prevent unnecessary traffic congestion which is already a living nightmare for many motorists. There are about 500 workers including local contractors, Indonesia and Bangladeshi working from midnight until 6am daily to work on the additional lanes on both side of the bridge. Those who drive pass the bridge might not notice anything unusual during the day as most of the work is being carried out under the bridge. Works on the expansion of the Penang Bridge project has been started since November 2006 and since then; massive concrete piles had been driven into the land and marine areas of the bridge between the mid-span and Prai. Pilling for the remaining stretch between the mid-span and Penang Island would be completed by August. UEM builders whom has been entrusted to carried out the widening project remain hopeful that they will be able to complete the laying out of all the 288 I-shape beams and 296 U-shape beams by early January next year. The beams which weigh about 80 tonnes and 140 tonnes respectively are hoisted to the bridge by using a 350 tonnes crane onboard a 76 meter long barge. Once all the beams had been placed at its designated position, concrete mix will later be poured over the steel bars in the formwork (mould) placed on the beams to create a cemented deck slab. The deadline for the completion of Penang Bridge span-widening projects will be at 24 August 2009 and many Penangites will keep their finger cross so that the traffic nightmare that they have been enduring all this while will now be history. Another good news is that the present government of Mr. Abdullah Badawi has approved the construction of Penang 2nd bridge project from Batu Maung on Penang Island to Batu Kawan on the Prai side, under 9th Malaysia Plan. It will be even longer than the existing ones and will took 5 years to complete. | |||||||||||||
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| Return from Penang Bridge Projects to Penang Bridge | |||||||||||||
| Return from Penang Bridge Projects to Penang Vacations (Home Page) | |||||||||||||
