Cutting steel pipes and sheet piling, removing piles of soil and Styrofoam blocks, filling holes, building scaffolding, replacing soil, placing reinforcement, making formwork and 100 cubic meters of concrete has been ordered for Friday.
“The new abutment will then have hardened sufficiently in week 16 to carry the last six heavy (70 tons each) girders over the Noord-Willemskanaal,” says foreman Marco Prins van Herepoort.
Complete bridge disappeared within a few days
Oh yes, in the meantime he has also ‘removed’ the complete temporary Retrobridge (traffic was still driving over it on Saturday) and cleaned up the canal. Foundation piles are vibrated out of the water and, where this is not allowed to prevent damage to a nearby main sewer pipe, divers cut the steel under water.
They are now also starting to work on a new section of quay and the final ‘braking works’ that should protect the (bicycle) bridge from collisions.
Prins, a resident of Genemuiden, is responsible for the relatively small but crucial part of the Ring South Approach. To be precise: from the Julianaplein or, zoomed in a little further, from the new Juliana Bridge.
Since the weekend, he has been working on a narrow, barely 100 meter long section of the 11 kilometer ring road that Combinatie Herepoort is converting: the last part of the new permanent Juliana Bridge over the Noord-Willemskanaal.
9 meter section must be finished quickly
The new bridge was already used by construction traffic, but a section of about 9 meters wide is still missing. This should be done before the first cars drive from Drachten to Assen on April 27. That is why the piece is crucial for the first phase of Operation Ring South. That is the series of closures of the Southern Ring Road between March 23 and September 2.
“Of course it would have been nicer to build the bridge in one go, but that was not possible because the traffic had to continue moving. That’s why we first built the foundation for the new bridge, then the temporary bridge (in 3 weeks, ed), then the bulk of the new one. Now the temporary bridge has been demolished in a few days and the foundation has been laid for the last part.”
Cranes came and went this week just to remove the temporary bridge. The first one was already there on Monday. The largest, one of 700 tons, lifted the last long bridge sections on Thursday onto a truck that was a good distance away.
300 road builders on and around Julianaplein
Of the 300 road builders, specialists in all kinds of different disciplines, who are working at Julianaplein this week, Prins manages about 70 people. They work in front of the Gyas rowing club in two shifts that are scheduled for 12 hours a day. “We work 24/7, but not around the clock: the shifts overlap to prevent work from coming to a standstill. That is why the shifts work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and from 12 p.m. to midnight.”
This is accompanied by great enthusiasm from everyone, he sees. “The atmosphere is really good. I see people even postpone their meal breaks if that suits them better. Everyone is in cooperative mode. You just notice that they have been waiting for this for a long time and now they want to have a blast.”
Prins has that too. “We met together very often during the preliminary phase to prepare all this. There were a lot of sessions to figure out how we would do it. To determine the order. Think again: are we forgetting anything? Are we really not going to get in each other’s way soon? Don’t we have to wait for each other unnecessarily?”
“That is quite complicated, because this is already a lot of work at the same time, but my colleagues also have to deal with all kinds of things in addition to that. When the time suddenly comes that you realize the plans outside during such a tough week and everything turns out to be correct, that is a wonderful thing to experience.”
The builders are free on Easter, Sunday and Monday. These are their last free holidays for the time being, because they continue working on King’s Day and May 5. “The concrete is just doing that this weekend,” Prins jokes. “That can harden undisturbed for a few days.”
Guardrails sold, styrofoam still for sale
The temporary bridge, which was built in January 2022 and was in use for six months longer than expected, was stripped of all markings before returning to supplier Retrobridge. “Otherwise they will do it themselves and send an invoice for it.”
It is unknown where the bridge parts, which can be used in all kinds of shapes and lengths, will go now. The company previously also supplied emergency bridges over the Paterswoldeweg, first for the bus route to P+R Hoogkerk and later also for Aanpak Ring Zuid. Those bridges caused a lot of inconvenience to local residents, but this time soundproofing measures helped. According to Herepoort, no complaints have been received about the bridge.
The steel beams and tubular piles under the bridge, purchased brand new, were bought back by the supplier at a second-hand price. Herepoort also saw an opportunity to wear out the temporary crash barriers: they will soon have the same function during the widening of the A9 near Amstelveen.
No buyer has yet been found for a large quantity of EPS panels (styrofoam). “We used that material to build temporary roads that have now been demolished. We hoped to apply the EPS elsewhere where it could remain, but because the construction of various project parts takes time pushed, that won’t work.”
Tags: Marco completes feat Juliana Bridge Groningen thought fits beautiful
