Al Salam Street Project, United Arab Emirates

Accelerated demographic growth and rapid economic development have led to increases in population and traffic in Abu Dhabi, the capital of United Arab Emirates. The Abu Dhabi Government is implementing various initiatives to develop surface infrastructure to enhance quality of life in the city.

The Al Salam Street Project is an initiative by Abu Dhabi Municipality to transform the existing Al Salam Street alignment into an uninterrupted traffic corridor. The project will have a series of tunnels, surface roadways and junctions that will ease traffic congestion. The Abu Dhabi Municipality is financing the AED5bn contract.

Project

The Al Salam Street Project consists of four construction contracts for grade-separated interchanges, tunnels, road widening and other improvements. Various detour routes are also being planned.

Contract one is the largest of the contracts and involve four lanes of traffic in each direction passing through a tunnel from Mina Road under the Al Salam Street crossing the Al Farah Street intersection. The work also includes building tunnels connecting Al Salam Street to Al Corniche Road.

The route is expected to carry more than 6,000 vehicles per hour. Key works include a road extension to 3.6km, a bow tunnel of 2.4km, a depressed tunnel of 1km and an approach road of 0.2km. The construction period is estimated to be 900 days.

Reconfiguration of roads at surface level will be carried out under contract two. The work includes two new tunnel interchanges near Khalifa Park. Each interchange will have depressed 850m-long roadways. On the surface, signalised intersections will control local traffic movements and ramps will provide access to and from Al Salam Street.

The interchanges will reduce travel times. The 4.1km road will include a bow tunnel of 0.23km, a depressed tunnel of 1.47km and an approach road of 2.4km. Construction work is expected to last 26 months.

A bridge-and-tunnel interchange providing three levels of traffic movement at the intersection of Al Salam Street and Hazaa Bin Zayed Street will be undertaken under contract three. The work will involve lowering Al Salam Street traffic below surface level, providing a signalised intersection at surface level and constructing a four-lane intersection on a 230m-long bridge leading to Hazaa Bin Zayed Street.

Contract three will provide additional access roads from Al Salam Street to adjacent sectors. This will increase the traffic capacity to 6,000 vehicles per hour to and from Reem Island on Hazaa Bin Zayed Street. A new tunnel at the Sea Palace intersection will carry Al Salam Street through traffic over 900m of depressed roadway. The tunnel will have four lanes in each direction and will add about 5,000 vehicles an hour at the Sea Palace intersection to Al Salam Street through traffic.

Key works under the contract include the upgrade of a 3.3km road, construction of a 1.53km-long underpass and laying a 1.47km improvement road and a 2.4km approach road. The work will last for 900 days.

Contract four includes road-widening activities. In addition to the three interchange projects, the road from Khalifa Park through Al Sa'ada Street will be widened to accommodate four lanes of traffic in each direction.

To facilitate free flow on the Al Salam Street section, three other existing signalised intersections will be reconfigured as restricted access right-in / right-out interchanges. The road-widening activities and removal of signals will double the segment's traffic handling capacity. The road-widening work will cover 2.7km and is expected to last 240 days.

Contractors

The Louis Berger Group is the programme manager and Parsons International is the design and supervision consultant of contracts one and two. Contract one, which is worth AED3bn, has been awarded to a joint venture of Samsung and Saif Bin Darwish.

Contract one, which began in May 2008, is expected to be completed by October 2010.

Contract two was awarded to MA Kharafi and Sons. Work on the AED807m contract began in May 2008 and is expected to be completed by August 2010.

Nurol LLC won the AED620m contract three. The Louis Berger Group is the programme manager and De Leuw Cather International is the design and supervision consultant. Contract three began in October 2007 and will be completed by April 2010.

The AED68m contract four was assigned to Hilalaco (Hilal Bil Badi and Partners). The programme manager is the Louis Berger Group and the design consultant and supervisions consultant are Dr Ahmed Abdel-Warith and Parsons International respectively. Work began in July 2009 and is expected to finish in May 2010.