Phu My Bridge officially opened

The $150m bridge was officially handed over to the people of Vietnam in a ceremony attended by the Prime Minister of Vietnam, along with other Vietnamese and Australian government officials, Baulderstone MD Rick Turchini, and member of the Bilfinger Berger Civil Board from Germany Jochen Keysberg
The cable-stayed bridge spans the Saigon River and forms part of a new ring road currently being built around the south and east of Ho Chi Minh City. When complete, the ring road will ease the traffic gridlock resulting from heavy vehicle traffic passing through the city, a problem which has become so bad in recent years, that a curfew has been imposed.
The modified H-shaped main towers, each 145m high and the completed 705m-long cable stayed bridge with its sky blue cables, are now highly visible from the city and surrounding areas. With its vast central 380m span, the bridge dominates the entrance to the Saigon River and will define the city’s skyline. The bridge boasts a 27m-wide main span deck to accommodate two lanes of vehicle traffic in each direction, together with separate motorbike lanes and pedestrian footways.
The scope of the contract also included the design and construction of the approach viaduct structures on either side of the river, about 760m and 640m long respectively.
Efficient working methods and the incorporation of in-depth bridge building experience, gained from previous projects such as Vietnam’s My Thuan Bridge, the Centennial Bridge over the Panama Canal and Sydney’s Anzac Bridge, enabled the Consortium to bring the bridge completion date forward by four months.
Ongoing navigational passage for river traffic, is ensured by a minimum high-tide vertical clearance of 45m across a 250m-wide zone of the bridge’s central span.
Baulderstone, in conjunction with Bilfinger Berger, formed a consortium to build the bridge.
It continued the relationships formed previously on other bridge projects with bridge construction partners Freyssinet International (cable stays and stressing), Cardno, (design of the approaches), the Vietnamese company CC620 (concrete, formwork, etc) and the French consultant Arcadis (design of the main bridge).
Design work was coordinated by Baulderstone and Bilfinger Berger staff in Vietnam, who closely supervised all subcontractors, and managed the direct labour construction of the main bridge. All works relating to the main bridge including piling, towers and decks were completed using direct labour.
Phu My Bridge Corporation (PMC) as the client, is a private consortium comprising Hanoi Construction Company, Investco, Cienco 620, Thanh Danh Co, and CII. PMC has a 30 year BOT licence to operate the bridge which will be part of a toll road.