Canberra residents face traffic delays amid work on Molonglo River bridge

The closure of Coppins Crossing Road has seen traffic delays, including on the first day back from holidays.

Transcript

00:00If you're looking for a sign that construction on the Molongolo River Bridge has finally

00:07ramped up, this is it.

00:09We've had to coordinate one of the largest cranes in Australia to come and help us with

00:14the lifts.

00:15At 143 metres tall, or roughly the height of Sin City's Venetian, and able to lift

00:20a whopping 1,600 tonnes, or around 10 blue whales, the DMAG is one of only a few machines

00:28capable of manoeuvring these 20 steel girders into place, and erect a 200 metre crossing

00:34through a nature reserve and over the region's largest river.

00:38But just getting it here required coordination across government, manufacturing, logistics

00:44and transport sectors, and three jurisdictions.

00:47That's come across from Western Australia on over 100 flatbed trucks, and the time to

00:52I guess erect that and coordinate that with the delivery of the steel girders themselves,

00:56which are travelling down from Newcastle.

00:58While it'll eventually deliver better connections for growing suburbs, and replace the flood-prone

01:03Coffins Crossing, crane operations mean road closures for three weeks, and plenty of pain

01:09before gain.

01:10We were just amazed with the traffic.

01:12We were coming the right way, but the traffic going in towards the cities was just amazing.

01:17No other access except to go out now via Belconnor.

01:22If you want to go across the Belconnor, you've got to go all the way around on the parkway.

01:25It makes my commute to work longer, so an extra ten minutes.

01:30We'd certainly encourage Canberrans to rethink their routines in terms of when they travel,

01:35if they can.

01:36The bridge isn't expected to be open to traffic until the third quarter of next year.

01:41Canberrans