Latest update May 14th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 17, 2012 News
Pull quote: “This bridge is about maintenance, maintenance, maintenance you never stop maintaining it. So when you get to one end you have to restart the other end because something else will go…’’
– Adams
General Manager of the Demerara Harbour Bridge, Rawlston Adams, has stated
that daily maintenance and inspections are critical to the upkeep of the 33-year-old structure.
During a recent interview with this publication, Adams emphasised that the Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB) is the primary means of transporting goods and services in the quantity required to the West Bank and West Coast Demerara.
As such, the effects of the almost 15,000 vehicles including trucks crossing the bridge daily must be taken into context with the fact that the bridge was built 33 years ago. However, with continuous interventions and daily maintenance the bridge has been “holding up pretty well,” he noted.
The General Manager related that the number of vehicles traversing the bridge has been increasing consistently over the last three years. “The traffic crossing this bridge is growing about nine percent per year over the past three years,” he stated.
The number of motor cars crossing the bridge in September 2008 was 65,000. That figure has increased to over 115,000. Meanwhile, trucks which have a major impact on the structure have increased from 9,600 in September 2008 to over 12,000 per month as of December 2011.
To ensure the structure can accommodate the increasing traffic, over the past four years about $1 billion is spent per year on rehabilitative works and maintenance. Some capitol works expedited include changing of deck plates, building transoms and buoys, servicing pontoons and purchasing wire ropes.
“The bridge’s capitol budget last year was about $550M, while in 2010 it was approximately $700M, coupled with our revenue that is used to maintain and keep the organisation going,” Adams emphasised.
“This bridge is about maintenance, maintenance, maintenance you never stop maintaining it. So when you get to one end you have to restart the other end because something else will go. So you will see employees out there checking the bridge and there is only a certain window available to the staff to get certain works done, especially those done with the tide,” he asserted.
Adams stressed that it is important the end-spans are floating at all times.
“If that does not float, then you do not have the hydraulic effect of the bridge in terms of absorbing all the impact from heavy vehicles transiting… if you have the pontoons sitting in the mud then when the truck hits it you do not have the absorbing effect like your car shacks, so then all that energy is transferred into the structure and that could damage the components,” he noted.
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