Bloemfontein Airport Interchange
The project described as the “gateway” to Bloemfontein was approved by Government as forming part of South Africa’s initiative to present to the world its readiness and worthiness to have been awarded the 2010 World Cup Soccer event.
It was initiated by the Free State Department of Police, Roads and Transport in conjunction with SANRAL (South African National Roads Agency Limited) in November 2007, with actual construction commencing in August 2009. Other key stakeholders in the road development are Mangaung Local Municipality (MLM) and Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA).
The old intersection of the N8 and Airport Access Road is a well known accident hot spot, and with ACSA’s planned developments next to the access road, including the construction of a hotel and business park in the vicinity—this had to be urgently dealt with.
The recently completed Bloemfontein Airport Interchange relieves commuters’ stress by upgrading the thruway of the N8, which originally, was not capable of handling the increasing traffic through the years.
In addition, the N8 corridor development is seen as a development node, forming part of Mangaung’s Spatial Development Framework (SDF) and Integrated Development Plan (IDP). New commercial development nodes have been identified at major intersections, particularly in previously disadvantaged areas with the hope of encouraging economic investment in these areas.
The construction comprises of an interchange encompassing new ramps and a major bridge across the N8, improved dual carriageway access to and from the Airport and various new link roads, vastly improved traffic flows to and from Bloemfontein are envisaged. The Maselspoort intersection onto the N8 will be realigned to the airport access road and the access to Bob Rogers Park will be relocated to a new position further north on the airport access road. A concrete walkway, running parallel to the N8, was constructed by emerging contractors to improve the safety of pedestrians along the road.
SSI Engineers and Environmental Consultants (SSI), as part of the ILISO/SSI JV, were appointed to undertake the design and construction monitoring. Sanyati E.C were appointed as the contractor with a ten month contract period ending 31 May 2010. The project was originally scheduled for 16 months, yet had to be scaled down to 10 months in order to be in full operation during the anticipated influx of users during the World Cup events in June to July this year. This this came along with its own set of challenges.
“We are constructing a new interchange bridge and access road to the Bloemfontein airport. This was supposed to be a 16 month project but was brought down to 10 months and posed a challenge to contractors on the site,” says Cornel Strydom of Sanyati Engineering Central.
Strydom related that the most pertinent challenges brought upon by the programme’s time change was, late arrival of the necessary construction material and the road traffic during peak hours. An additional challenge was the abnormally high rainfall experienced, from October 2009 to February 2010. In addition to creating a better road network, this R123 million project provided 130 job opportunities to local citizens.
Project Team
Client: South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL)
Design & Construction Monitoring: ILISO / SSI joint venture
Main Contractor: Sanyati Engineering Central
