As the Abuja Airport re-opens for business, the FCT Administration has promised to ease traffic flow in that axis by completing and commissioning the Airport Road and the Bill Clinton Bridge soon.
The trumpet overhead bridge is linking the Bill Clinton Drive with the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua Expressway (Airport Rod) and Gwagwalada-Giri axis.
The FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello in company of the FCT Permanent Secretary, Dr. Babatope Ajakaiye, who paid an unscheduled visit to the project site on Tuesday, said that the opening of the strategic trumpet bridge would further reduce traffic bottlenecks along that route.
The Minister assured that efforts would be re-doubled to ensure that the trumpet bridge with its loops and tangents are completed in good time and opened to the motoring public within a very short period.
His words: “We have seen the progress of work and we will continue to provide you all the needed support and funds. Of course the Airport is going to be opened very shortly. So, it’s very important that you work towards your timeline, particularly the mid May timeline so that at least it can ease traffic flow.”
According to him, “The Bill Clinton Bridge on the Airport expressway is a very important project of the FCT Administration. It is meant to carry traffic in and out of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport. With the increased flow of traffic and movement, it’s very important for us to make sure that this very critical bridge is completed”.
“But overall, we are very happy with your work and I think this goes also to show that you are very important citizens of Abuja. You have basically constructed a significant part of the city and we look forward to when we will all come and just cut the tape to commission this project,” he stressed.
Malam Bello stated that when this administration came in, it was basically a hanging bridge but within the last few months, with proper funding and supervision, the contractors came back to site and they have done a very wonderful job.
“From your timeline, I understand a portion of the bridge will be operational within the next few weeks and subsequently within the next two or three months, the entire section will be completed including all the streetlights, road signage as well as all the drainage points and we will have a very beautiful bridge linking the city with the Airport,” he noted.
He reiterated, “I’m so pleased with this and this is what we will continue to do in many sections of the city, trying to complete on-going infrastructure, so that we will truly get the benefit of being a mega city where everybody will move around without too much hindrance.”
The Acting Director of the FCDA Engineering Services Department, Engr. Shehu Hadi Ahmad who took the Minister and his entourage round the project site revealed that the project which was awarded on the 7th May 2009, and work commencement on the 13th May 2009 is 95 per cent complete.
The Director disclosed that the project comprises of the rehabilitation of the existing dual carriageways and its expansion to 10-Lane carriageways inclusive of the service lanes on both sides.
