Access Engineering begins construction of a flyover in Colombo

Access Engineering PLC (AEL), Sri Lanka’s pioneer in the flyover construction in Sri Lanka, was awarded the construction of a flyover connecting Baladaksha Mawatha and Chittampalam A Gardiner Mawatha going over the railway track and Beira Lake in Slave Island.

Slave Island is a very busy commercial area with many government offices, restaurants, hospitals, corporate offices, cinemas, religious places and residencies. Further, the Slave Island area has become the centre of real-estate development projects in Colombo, with many recent iconic development projects, namely Colombo Waterfront Integrated Resort, ITC Colombo One, Shangri La, Destiny Mall and Residency and Tata Housing.

The road network through the Slave Island area plays a vital role in connecting the southern part of the Colombo city with the economic hub of Colombo (Fort and Pettah areas) and is highly congested during the peak hours, serving the traffic inwards and outwards.

Further, the Coastal Line, one of the major railway lines in Sri Lanka Railways, runs through the Slave Island area, with two level crossings on Justice Akbar Mawatha (nearby Kompannya Veediya railway station) and Uttarananda Mawatha. Due to the rail traffic, the number of gate closures is more than 100 per day; the estimated loss of time is more than three hours per day, per level crossing.

The Road Development Authority (RDA) has identified that traffic congestion in the area could be eased off by providing a connecting road with three flyovers in the Slave Island area and the above is one of them.

The project, which was initiated as a solution to the situation at hand, involves an erection of a 360-metrelong steel flyover, which is comprised of two 3.5-metrewide lanes, carriageway for one-way traffic and 2.0-metrewide two pedestrian ways. The flyover will be built on pile foundations with six span steel superstructure.

AEL has joined hands with Spanish engineering company Centunion S.A., which handles the superstructure designs and provides consultancy services for the project while fellow subcontractor Master Hellie’s Engineering Consultants (Pvt.) Ltd oversees the geometrical designs.

The official groundbreaking ceremony of the project on June 7, 2021 saw the opening of a plaque and the event was attended online via Zoom technology by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa from Temple Trees.