By Amira Ibrahim Soon, and for the first time in more than three decades, it will be possible to travel to Sinai by taking a bridge over the Suez Canal. Indeed, the happy traveller may well be spoiled for choice since, by early 2001, a selection will have to be made between two bridges. The first to open, a rotating steel structure under construction at Al-Firdan, 25km to the north of Ismailia, will carry a single line railway and two lanes of traffic. At 640 metres it will be the longest movable steel bridge in the world. Travel a further 20km north, and you reach Qantara, site of a second massive construction project. For it is here, at a cost of LE640 million, that a second bridge is to be built. Construction on the Al-Firdan bridge began in November 1997 though, according to site manager Samir Fouad, progress has been hampered by red tape. "Almost 2,000 engineers, technicians and labourers are employed on the project, and work continues for 16 hours a day in order to meet the deadline," said Fouad. The first train is scheduled to cross the bridge in October 2000. The bridge, which is budgeted at LE333 million and being constructed by a consortium of Egyptian, Belgian and German companies, is the fifth to be built at the same spot. The first, 146 metres in length, was built in 1920. Designed to carry railway traffic it was rebuilt three times, in 1943, 1952 and 1963. Bombed during the 1967 War, the sleepers along a track that once reached Gaza were pulled up by the Israelis and used in building the Bar Lev line. Soon, though, Sinai will once again be crossed by railway lines when the 225km railroad from Al-Arish to Rafah, which Minister of Transportation Soliman Metwalli announced would be complete by the end of next year, is in operation. The need to streamline crossings of the canal have long been a priority. The fanfare that greeted the opening of Al-Shaheed Ahmed Hamdi tunnel in 1983 promised an end to a pressing problem but the tunnel has had a chequered history. Technical problems, which by 1993 had become pressing, led to a three year programme of reconstruction, which at LE200 million were double the original building costs. To cope with the increase in traffic across the canal scores of ferry boats operate at eight crossing points, yet still queues form in an ever-growing bottleneck, and the ferries themselves constitute a hindrance to navigation. Nor has a temporary floating bridge, erected at night in an attempt to relieve the accumulated congestion, proved sufficient. Egypt's 1979 peace accord with Israel included provisions for the construction of three tunnels under the canal though such a solution, given the unhappy experience of the Ahmed Hamdi tunnel, pushed officials to explore alternative options. A feasibility study was commissioned from the Japan International Corporation (JICA), in order to determine the most efficient means of alleviating congestion. "The study was completed in 1996," said Major General Abdel-Aziz Salama, governor of Ismailia, "which showed a bridge to be more economical than a tunnel. The suggested location was at Qantara, 55km to the north of Ismailia." Such a location, explained Salama, could not be better, since it fits perfectly with the National Project for the Development of Sinai, approved in 1994 and intended to attract more than three million inhabitants to the peninsula by the year 2017. Almost 60 per cent of the LE640 million the Qantara bridge is expected to cost has been provided by Japan, and the main cable-stayed portion of the span is being built by a Japanese company. It will be served, on either bank, by reinforced concrete supply bridges, which have been contracted to local companies. According to Engineer Sinout Wilson Shaker, executive manager of the project, "Egyptian companies have been working on the project for a year and a half while the Japanese started only a few months ago." When completed, he added, the bridge "together with the Northern Coastal highway will complete a land transportation route between North Africa and Europe through the East Mediterranean." The final Qantara structure will be 9.5km long, 20 metres wide, and will cross the canal at a height of 70 metres. photo: Khaled El-Fiqi
