The Atlantic Bridge () is a
road bridge
A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...
in
Colón,
Panama
Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...
spanning the
Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...
entrance to the
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal () is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. It cuts across the narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama, and is a Channel (geography), conduit for maritime trade between th ...
. Completed in 2019, it is the third bridge over the canal after the
Bridge of the Americas
The Bridge of the Americas (; originally known as the Thatcher Ferry Bridge) is a road bridge in Panama which spans the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal. Designed by American civil engineering company Sverdrup & Parcel, it was completed ...
and the
Centennial Bridge, both on the
Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...
side of the canal.
The bridge is a double-pylon, double-plane, concrete
girder
A girder () is a Beam (structure), beam used in construction. It is the main horizontal support of a structure which supports smaller beams. Girders often have an I-beam cross section composed of two load-bearing ''flanges'' separated by a sta ...
,
cable-stayed bridge
A cable-stayed bridge has one or more ''towers'' (or ''pylons''), from which wire rope, cables support the bridge deck. A distinctive feature are the cables or wikt:stay#Etymology 3, stays, which run directly from the tower to the deck, norm ...
with a main span of and two side spans of . The east and west approaches are and long, respectively. The bridge was designed by the
China Communication Construction Company and built by
Vinci Construction.
Route
The bridge is part of a local connection road (as yet unnamed) between Bolivar Highway in the east and the undeveloped western area. It will replace the nearby Panama Canal Ferry. It is the only bridge north of the
Culebra Cut (
Puente Centenario
Panama's Centennial Bridge () is a major bridge crossing the Panama Canal. It was built to supplement the overcrowded Bridge of the Americas and to replace it as the carrier of the Pan-American Highway. Upon its opening in 2004, it became the sec ...
).
Construction
Three consortiums were approved to bid for the bridge construction:
Acciona Infraestructuras -Tradeco (Spain and Mexico),
Odebrecht
Odebrecht S.A. (), officially known as Novonor, is a Brazilian conglomerate, headquartered in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, consisting of diversified businesses in the fields of engineering, construction, chemicals and petrochemicals. The company w ...
–
Hyundai
Hyundai is a former South Korean industrial conglomerate ("''chaebol''"), which was restructured into the following groups:
* Hyundai Group, parts of the former conglomerate which have not been divested
** Hyundai Asan, a real estate construction ...
Joint Venture (Brazil and Korea), and
Vinci Construction Grands Projets (France). Tenders were received in August 2012.
In October 2012, the Panama Canal Authority awarded a contract to the French company Vinci Construction to build a third (permanent) bridge, near the Atlantic side, for an offer price of . At that time the bridge had no name, but ''Third bridge'' and ''Atlantic side bridge'' were used, as well as ''Atlantic Bridge''.
Construction of the bridge and access viaducts, which commenced in January 2013, was planned to take three and a half years and was expected to be completed in 2016. The main span of the bridge was keyed (joined into a single span) on 6 September 2018. The bridge was unveiled by Panama President
Laurentino Cortizo and Panama Canal Administrator Jorge Quijano on Friday 2 August 2019.
See also
*
List of bridges in Panama Historical bridges
Major bridges
References
*
* Others references
See also
* Transport in Panama
External links
*
{{Bridge footer
Lists of bridges by country, Panama
Bridges in Panama, *
Lists of buildings and structures ...
References
External links
Atlantic Bridge website by
Vinci SA
Vinci (; corporately styled VINCI) is a French concessions and construction company founded in 1899 as Société Générale d'Entreprises. Its head office is in Nanterre, in the western suburbs of Paris. Vinci is listed on Euronext's Paris st ...
Atlantic Bridge article by
China Communications Construction
*
{{Panama Canal
Panama Canal
Colón, Panama
Bridges in Panama
Road bridges
Cable-stayed bridges in Panama
Girder bridges
Concrete bridges
Buildings and structures in Colón Province
Bridges completed in 2019
2019 establishments in Panama
Transcontinental crossings