City issues sky bridge deadline

Photo by: Pha Lina

Construction workers dig a trench yesterday along Russian Boulevard as part of a project to build a flyover linking Tuol Kork and Sen Sok districts.

via CAAI

Thursday, 03 March 2011 15:02 Tep Nimol

Phnom Penh City Hall yesterday announced a deadline of seven days for state institutions, private companies and commercial vendors to make way for construction of the capital’s second flyover.

The announcement warned that state facilities and businesses had one week to move their offices, including fibre-optic cables and water lines at the site along Russian Federation Boulevard, or City Hall would “move and cut those networks without any responsibility for damage or losses”.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held on December 29 for the flyover, which will connect Tuol Kork and Sen Sok districts and aims to ease traffic congestion in the capital, particularly at the intersection of Russian Federation and Kampuchea Krom boulevards.

Khuong Sreng, Sen Sok district governor, said villagers in his district would not be affected by construction, which he said would principally impact facilities using underground fibre-optic networks.

He said most companies had already started to remove their underground systems.

“We have implemented the project since the ground-breaking ceremony and are continuing to do so,” he said.

Bech Sok Khoeurn, chief of Tuol Kork’s Teuk Laak 1 commune, said construction of the flyover would affect the Royal University of Phnom Penh but that issues would be “easy to solve”.

He added that about 120 square metres of land owned by one family in the commune would also be affected but that officials were working with the family to find a resolution.

At 345 metres long and 15.2 metres wide, the planned bridge would be larger than the capital’s first flyover, the Kbal Thnal Sky Bridge, and construction is estimated to take at least 13 months, at a cost of about US$8.7 million.