WEIGHT RESTRICTIONS ON WASAI BRIDGE, TAVUA
August 31, 2020FRA CLARIFIES MISINFORMATION IN THE MEDIA
September 11, 2020
5 September 2020
Fiji Roads Authority (FRA) is pleased to advise that the Tamavua-i-Wai Bridge outside Suva will be open to traffic from 4am, Sunday 6th September.
The Tamavua River enters Suva Bay at the site of the new bridge and faces an estuary that is subject to hydrographic conditions that include the tide level, sea level rise, and water action. Under such conditions, we have considered 0.70m allowance in the bridge design for the change in sea level rise.
The new Tamavua-i-Wai Bridge project has a design life of 100 years and built with a reinforced concrete deck bridge, precast pre-stressed beams, piled foundations and engineering fill approach roads, located on the seaward side of the existing Tamavua-i-Wai Bridge. The new bridge will accommodate two lane traffic and one walkway for pedestrians. The total width of the bridge is 10.47m comprising of two traffic lanes and is of 7.0m with 2x 0.30m shoulder and 1 x 2.0m walkway. The overall length of the bridge is 91.20m and has in six spans arrangement.
As such, constructing weather resilient infrastructure is vital and we have taken into account the design water levels e.g. sea level rise 0.70m due to climate change, wave height 2.2m due to storm-surge arising from cyclones and tide level deviation 1.20m.
Ensuring that current and future environmental and climate risks are incorporated into the Tamavua-i-Wai Bridge design will safeguard access to basic services and reduce vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental issues.
Accounting for these climate impacts on future infrastructure investment will better protect people and the assets, saving taxpayers money.
