Posted on 09 Sep 2015
WORKS to place a pedestrian bridge from the ongoing Phileo Damansara MRT station to the Phileo Damansara Trade Centre is expected to be completed this Sunday.
The walkway will be eventually 78.64m-long when a shorter span measuring 23.25m is put into place this weekend.
Mass Rapid Transit Corporation Bhd (MRT Corp) spokesman said it took 14 hours and three high-capacity cranes to instal the 55.39m-long steel-framed main span weighing 165.2 tonnes last Sunday.
One stretch of the Sprint Highway which was closed to traffic to instal the bridge on Sunday was reopened at 2.10pm, about four hours earlier than initially planned.
The closure had caused a massive traffic jam in the Petaling Jaya area as well as on the New Klang Valley Expressway that day.
While the actual lifting of the bridge only took about four hours, a lot of work went into rolling the main span into position for lifting. This led to the removal of the gantries and concrete barriers across the Damansara Link of Sprint.
The plan for this complex operation was first presented by Naim Engineering Sdn Bhd, the subcontractor for the station, in June this year.
That same month, an application for the traffic management plan was presented to stakeholders such as Sprint, Malaysian Highway Authority, the Petaling Jaya City Council, and the Petaling Jaya traffic police headquarters for their approval.
Prior to the lifting, the main span was assembled in front of the Petronas station adjacent to the station, and was slowly wheeled on a prime loader with 21 axles on the day of lifting, making it the largest lifting operation.
MRT Corp Strategic Communications director Datuk Najmuddin Abdullah was glad that the lifting exercise was carried out successfully without any hitches.
MRT Corp foresees that it would not need more than 18 hours for this operation.
Unlike last Sunday’s total closure, this partial closure will not affect Sprint users heading for Kuala Lumpur, while motorists from Kuala Lumpur to Petaling Jaya will be diverted into Jalan Dato’ Abu Bakar.
The flyover on Jalan 16/11 for the U-turn into Sprint will remain open.
