KK Times Square bridge-road link to ease city congestion
by Jenne Lajiun. Posted on June 23, 2012, Saturday
KOTA KINABALU: The city will have a new bridge that will link KK Times Square and the Riverson development with the future bus terminal.
The bridge, costing more than RM20 million, will feature three lanes in both directions and is expected to be completed in 12 months from yesterday.
The cost of building the bridge will be borne entirely by the developer of KK Times Square, Syarikat Kapasi Sdn Bhd, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Asian Pac Holdings Bhd.
It also consists of a bicycle track, which is part of the Tanjong Aru to Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) Cycleway Project, which will be implemented by the City Hall this year, said Asian Pac Holdings Bhd managing director, Dato Mustapha Buang during the ground breaking ceremony of the KK Times Square New Link Road Bridge held in front of Wawasan Plaza and next to the present bus terminal.
Later, during a press conference, Mayor Datuk Abidin Madingkir said that the establishment of the new bridge and road would help ease traffic congestion along the coastal highway.
“At present, many motorists are using the Coastal Highway, resulting in traffic congestion. With the bridge connecting direct to Anjung Senja from the KK Times Square, we feel that it will help ease the congestion. The road network is something we have been hoping for in efforts to reduce traffic congestion,” he said.
“The link bridge will provide another road network connectivity to the city, especially to the future bus terminal, Anjung Senja Sea front boardwalk and joining Jalan Tun Fuad Stephens towards the northern part of the city,” he said.
Apart from relieving traffic congestion, Abidin also said that the link bridge has touristic elements attached to it since it is sited by the coast.
Meanwhile a press statement from the developer explained that the 87.4 meters long and 28.4 meters wide bridge will span over Sungai Sembulan and that its aim is to enhance accessibility to the mixed development for KK Times Square.
To span the relatively wide but shallow bridge, two units of single span twin cell box girders will be used.
The bridge is designed for a three-lane dual carriageway skewed at 18 degrees with a central median of 2.4 meters and a walkway on both sides of the bridge.
Full integral bridge design concept is adopted. No expansion joints and bearings are used in the design of the bridge to minimize future maintenance cost; the bridge is built monolithically to the abutments.
The proposed new bridge is designed as cast in situ post-tensioned box girder bridge and that the box girder depth varies from 1.8 meters at mid span to 4 meters at the pier.
To optimize the design of the bridge to achieve the required free board with relatively shallow depth, counter weight box segments of 10 meters long and 5.1 meters deep are provided at the two abutments. These counter weight segments are filled in with granular fill material.
Bored piles are adopted as the foundation of the bridge structures, to provide resistance as well as the lateral soil structure interaction.
It is also said that the Jalan New Link and the bridge were designed in accordance with the ‘technical directive of Public Works Department’ and meets the urban road alignment requirements.
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