Safety still an issue at Tahlia intersection construction site

JEDDAH: Jeddah municipality’s statement last week on the collapse of scaffolding that held up construction overpass in Tahlia Street and Prince Majed Street intersection raised more questions on the safety measures taken by the contractor.
Arab News visited the project site and noticed that cars pass near the scaffolding with no barriers to protect them.
Arab News showed a picture of the unprotected scaffolding to the municipality’s spokesman, Dr. Abdul Aziz Al-Nahari, who then referred it to a specialist and promised to get back to the newspaper with a statement.
But Al-Nahari played down the danger of the situation saying had there been something wrong with that, the municipality would have taken action.
The municipality explained, however, on its website that the project faced numerous difficulties since it started in August 2008. Most noticeably was the difficulty to get licenses from traffic police to detour the traffic.
Apparently the problem goes beyond license issuance. On the same website, the municipality said it discovered more infrastructure networks under the project’s site. The municipality said on its website that fuel pipelines were found during digging for the underpass.
“The pipeline forced us to go around it since relocating it would cost more than the official budget set for the entire project,” said the municipality. By regulations, contractors are provided with charts detailing all underground infrastructures, fuel and water networks. The pipelines discovered at the site belonged to the General Authority for Water Desalination.
Not only did the pipelines surprise the municipality, the contractor later discovered a petroleum leak coming from a neighboring gas station. The leak was a threat to the isolation layer and the concrete. The municipality spokesman said the delay was because of the leakage.
The intersection was scheduled for completion in Ramadan according to previous statements by the municipality but the contractor failed to hand it in on time. The overpass at Prince Muhammad bin Abdul Aziz Street (Tahlia Street) is the last project that, when complete, would open a third highway in Jeddah. This highway starts from old Makkah road and ends at the new terminals of King Abdul Aziz Airport.