Cape Town - Ashton and Montagu residents can look forward to being part of construction history this weekend as the Ashton Arch – South Africa’s first concrete tied arch bridge – will launch in the town this weekend.
The bridge, along the tourist attraction Route 62, crosses the Cogmanskloof River and replaces an existing multi-arch bridge which no longer fulfilled its functional requirements after suffering a number of flooding incidents.
According to the official Ashton Arch website, the objective of this project was to “reconstruct parts of the road from Ashton to Montagu to a higher standard in order to improve traffic and pedestrian safety as well as improve flood capacity of bridges and resistance to overtopping of the road at several problem locations”.
The bridge is 113m long, weighs 8 000 tonnes and rises 22 metres in height.
The arch accommodates four traffic lanes and two walkways and will be shifted into its final position by a transverse launching method over 23m at the weekend.
Motorists have been alerted to road closures over the weekend where the launch will take place.
The R60 will be closed from Saturday at 5am until Monday at 5am.
For motorists wanting to travel through Ashton, a detour route will be via Bonnievale on the R317, which is 43km.
Watch a preview ahead of the livestream here:
undefinedCape Times