Jeddah Mayoralty recently opened the new bridge linking King Fahd Intersection and Quraish Street to ease the traffic jam. Ahmad Ba Nafi, Assistant Deputy Mayor of Jeddah for Construction and Projects, has said the project which is the second in the series of the bridges being carried out by the mayoralty to reduce traffic jams has been carried out in 18 months at a total cost of SR18 million. He denied rumors that there were technical errors in the 550–meter long bridge. The scanning and digging on the work site showed that there was a mistake in the route of the flood channel manifested in clashing with bridge's pillars, he said. He said the error was corrected by changing the axel of the bridge to the west instead of changing the channel's route which would have cost the public treasury SR2 million. He stressed that the change made in the axel would in no way affect the traffic. He said the construction company had taken all necessary precautionary measures during the construction work so as not to affect the flow of traffic by constructing especial tracks for the project's heavy machinery besides carrying out the construction work after midnight. He said an integrated traffic study would be carried out following the opening of the bridge for traffic to evaluate the flow of traffic during the peak hours. He said the mayoralty has allocated SR5 billion for the construction of 22 intersections and several tunnels and bridges in different parts of the coastal city with the objective of putting an end to the problem of traffic jams resulting from the tremendous increase in the number of vehicles.
