Construction of a flyover at the Port of Gdansk nearing completion
Work on the expansion of the road and railway network at the Outer Port has been ongoing for eight months now at the Port of Gdansk. The General Contractor for the project is the NDI company from Sopot, which has already completed over 35% of the work in spite of the winter season. Today, one of the four planned flyovers was symbolically topped-out, the port authority said in a press release.
The WD-4 flyover is the most advanced out of the four under construction. Ultimately, it will be used by traffic moving along Kontenerowa Street, a dual carriageway currently undergoing expansion. The flyover runs above the railway tracks at the Outer Port. Its span - 17.44 m - is adjusted to the location of the tracks running below. The length of the structure is 41.10 m. The flyover will be well-lit and apart from the roadways, it will include a pedestrian walkway and a bikeway.
The flyover was designed as two single-span structures with the deck constructed of prefabricated prestressed T-beams. 1,300 m3 of concrete and 210 tonnes of steel were used for the construction. The flyover was constructed of 24 mounted beams, each 18 m long and weighing 12 tonnes. The beams were set up using a crane with a lifting capacity of 100 tonnes to an accuracy of 1 cm.
Due to difficult ground conditions, the WD-4 bridge structure was seated indirectly on nearly 20-metre piles topped with pile caps. Its construction required an alteration of the existing utilities networks underground.
"Within the first 8 months of the construction, we focused our efforts on works consisting in basal reinforcement, earthwork, demolishing the old and building new road structures, services diversions and construction of new utilities networks, which will enable modern functioning of the road and railway network at the Port," says Jacek Szymanski, project manager at NDI. "We have already completed 70% of the ground reinforcement work, and the mounting of the elements of the deck structure of the WD-2 flyover is planned for May".
Within the coming months, NDI will continue work on the networks and earthwork, and road surfacing is also set to begin: both in asphalt and concrete paving technology and in preparation for laying railway tracks. Backfilling will begin as well, thanks to which paving work on the structure and the access roads, followed by commissioning is planned within a short time.
"I am very pleased with the progress we can see in this project. In mid-November last year, we laid the foundation stone for the object, and today, it was already topped-out. The pace of work is all the more satisfying, because we need to plan our activities very carefully, taking care to maintain full accessibility and operability of the Port," says Malgorzata Winiarek-Gajewska, President of the Board of NDI SA.
As part of the road and railway network expansion project at the Outer Port, executed by NDI for the Port of Gdansk Authority, the following streets will be converted: Portowa, Poinca, Kontenerowa, and Budowniczych Portu Polnocnego, with the total length of 5.6 km. Four new flyovers are under construction and two existing ones will be demolished (including one over railway tracks in operation and one over PERN, LOTOS, and Naftoport fuel pipelines). Another railway track leading to the DCT terminal will be added, along with new tracks leading to the coal terminals, and a modern railway traffic control system will be implemented. The first buffer car park for heavy goods vehicles in this part of the Port will also be built.
"The road and railway network is a key investment for the Port of Gdansk. Our business partners are growing rapidly, handling more and more cargo each year - and the goods need to be transported in an efficient manner. As the owner of the grounds and the port infrastructure, we need to respond to these needs. We are very happy with the pace set by NDI. We will see the final effect of the ongoing work as soon as next year, when all the projects related to EU funding will be completed," explains Lukasz Greinke, President of the PGA.
The new road and railway system with the length of 9.4 km (including 16 new junctions) is also intended to constitute a base for the future Central Port thanks to which the transshipment volume at the Port of Gdansk may reach 100 million tonnes a year. The value of the contract amounts to nearly PLN 176 million. The project will be completed by the end of 2020.