The Public Works Bureau (known by its Portuguese initials DSOP) is now assessing tenders for the first phase of the Big Taipa Hill Tunnel, an infrastructural project connecting Pac On with Cotai, the Macau Post Daily reports.
DSOP said yesterday that it expected the four-lane, 600-metre tunnel’s construction to start in the second quarter of next year. Dates for the project’s second phase, a flyover linking the tunnel’s northern side with the soon-to-open Macao Bridge, have not yet been announced.
Eight companies put bids in for the limited tender, which launched 29 May. The submission period ended on Monday and the intentions were unsealed yesterday. The bureau will set a new deadline for final quotations once it’s selected the top five submissions.
[See more: Ex-power plant social housing now complete]
The tender set a maximum period of 1,165 working days (equating to about four and a half years)
for the completion of the project’s first phase, with the first 150 working days earmarked for polishing up the tunnel’s final design.
Pac On is where the new Macao Bridge meets its Taipa side. DSOP said that the Big Taipa Hill Tunnel would create “a straight traffic line” between Pac On and the Rotunda do Aeroporto, near Cotai. A green area known as Big Taipa Hill (or, Taipa Grande in Portuguese and Tai Tam San in Cantonese) sits between the two areas.
The tunnel would result in faster commutes between the Macao peninsula and Cotai and help alleviate traffic pressures on Estrada de Pac On and Avenida Wai Long, where the airport and the Taipa Ferry Terminal are located, DSOP added.
