Construction to start soon on New Bridgewater Bridge – August 2022

Work to build the highly anticipated New Bridgewater Bridge will start in coming months, with early works progressing on site.

Construction company McConnell Dowell, who was announced as the preferred contractor and awarded an Early Activities Agreement in December 2021, has spent the past six months developing further their chosen design and preparing to start work on what will be the state’s biggest transport infrastructure project.

The new four lane bridge will fix the missing link in Tasmania’s National Highway, while also improving connections at Bridgewater and Granton and catering for cyclists and pedestrians with a safe shared path.

The design is the result of extensive planning, design work and community engagement to find the best solution to meet the needs of the community now and into the future.

The project will remove the notorious bottleneck at the Granton roundabout, providing the 22,000 vehicles that use the bridge each day with free-flowing access to the Brooker Highway, Lyell Highway and Midland Highway.

A new ramp from Boyer Road onto the bridge will offer easy access for local traffic wanting to travel south, while Gunn Street will join with Old Main Road under the new bridge to create a continuous connection and more open space.

On the southern side of the river, the journey from Hobart to New Norfolk will be uninterrupted, with the creation of a dedicated slip lane from the Brooker Highway onto the Lyell Highway.

Creating jobs and supporting Tasmanian industry is a key focus of the project, with McConnell Dowell working to engage a number of Tasmanian organisations to assist with the delivery of the project.

Alongside upskilling Tasmanian workers, the project will create more than 200 new jobs for Tasmanians and will support more than 800 direct and indirect jobs.

The project team is working closely with the community to finalise the design for the new bridge, and the community will have an opportunity to view the designs and provide feedback before construction starts later in the year.