The Hunter River Third Crossing at Maitland provides a new transport corridor between Melbourne Street, East Maitland and Paterson Road, Bolwarra. It includes a new bridge over the Hunter River and a new bridge over the Main Northern Rail Lines with more than 5 kilometres of new road to bypass the busy Maitland CBD for traffic travelling between Bolwarra and East Maitland.
The project reduces congestion on Belmore Bridge in Maitland and provides an alternative route to the heritage listed Morpeth Bridge.
Arenco was responsible for the construction of the new bridge over the Hunter River which is approximately 350m long and comprises of twelve spans of 1500 deep super-T girders. The bridge substructure was constructed from a rock causeway requiring a detailed hydrology study.
Arenco was also engaged for the construction of the railway bridge over the Main Northern Rail Lines. This bridge is approximately 47m long and comprises of three spans of super-T girders. The design component of the works included geotechnical investigations, structural design, urban landscape design and independent verification.
The Hunter River bridge was a major construction project in a high profile, environmentally sensitive, river zone. Some piers had to be constructed in the watercourse through the use of coffer dams and temporary rock work platforms. All works in the river were approved prior to commencement and completed without incident.
The bridge over the Main Northern Rail Lines involved working within fixed time constraints to enable the installation of the bridge girders in the allocated weekend possession, which was met.
