The Ministry of Public Works (MOP) will invest over $11 million to attend to twelve bridges and also announces that maintenance will be carried out once the works are completed. Edwin Lewis, National Director of Study and Design of the Ministry of Public Works, confirmed that the first vehicular overpass to be attended is the one on Vía España (Cincuentenario and El Balboa), as it is the one with the most visible deterioration. "The first intervention will be on the vehicular overpass on Vía España (Cincuentenario and El Balboa), because among all the deteriorated ones, this is the most critical because it is visible that there are elements on the lower part of the crossbeams that must be replaced, the road surfaces are deteriorated, and the joint must be replaced," Lewis said on TVN Noticias. From there, they will move on to the bridge near the USMA and in a period of one year, they will attend to the bridges based on a schedule that will be published soon by that entity. And it is that the MOP communicated that it awarded the consortium Puentes Modulares, made up of Constructora Urbana, S.A. and Toronto Global Holdings, the execution of this project for $11.5 million. In this case, it is about the design, rehabilitation, construction, and maintenance of 12 vehicular bridges, 11 of which are Mabey type, located in the districts of Panama and San Miguelito. According to Lewis, the bridges began to be installed in 1999 and have not had deep maintenance for a period of 25 years. "There has not been an integral plan until now, what we propose is to make a complete program that allows replacing the deteriorated elements, repairing the road surfaces, bolts, guardrails, road safety elements, cleaning, painting the bridge, and leaving it in satisfactory conditions for the user from the point of view of the structure and three years of maintenance," he expressed. Lewis pointed out that the repair of each bridge can take from 45 days to two months because they must be done in a controlled manner. "I cannot close the bridge, I have to work mainly at night, during the day you can work on the lower part, but as long as there is traffic, I have to make partial closures," he added. When the first year of repair and rehabilitation is finished, there will be three years of maintenance, he sentenced.
