Hunter Expressway Alliance manager Peter Chatburn, project development manager Greg Fell and Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon inspect the bridge.
Motorists will drive on the first sections of the Buchanan Road-John Renshaw Drive interchange, as part of the Hunter Expressway, early next month.
Construction crews have completed a 25 metre bridge over Surveyors Creek, Buchahan, as part of the eastbound carriageway of John Renshaw Drive and
will be open to traffic from August 10.
A temporary roundabout will be built at the intersection of John Renshaw and George Booth drives from Friday and will reopen Monday morning.
From August 10, traffic from East Maitland will travel beneath the new expressway and merge at the temporary roundabout.
Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon inspected the first bridge of 29 in the project.
“It is good to see work progressing on what will be a visually stunning drive, with some bridges, such as viaducts, being built as tall as 42 metres above the valley floor,” he said.
The temporary roundabout will take some of the towering spoil pile – containing an estimated 10,000 cubic metres of earth – as fill to create the road between George Booth Drive and the temporary roundabout.
“Some people have been speculating that [spoil pile] would be the height of the interchange over the expressway, but it’s not,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
A detour will be in place for
traffic on George Booth Drive.
Between now and April 2013 more of the spoil pile will be used to build up the westbound
carriageway.
The $1.7 billion Hunter Expressway is co-funded by the federal ($1.5b) and state governments ($200 million).
