Eastern Freeway Upgrades – Burke to Tram Bulleen Bridge Demolition

Bulleen Road bridge is being widened from six lanes to ten as part of the new interchange connecting an upgraded Eastern Freeway to the North East Link tunnels. To make room for the widening, a new bridge structure had to be craned in alongside the existing one — and before that could happen, 100 metres of footpath had to come off the side of the bridge in service.

Austral Contractors was engaged by City Circle Group to remove it.

The footpath was 600mm thick reinforced concrete, running the full length of the structure. We combined three methods to take it off cleanly: core drilling to establish access for the wire and to break down cut lines at corners and terminations; wire sawing to make the long severance cut separating the footpath from the bridge deck; and wall sawing to cut the run into sections sized for the crane. Each section was lifted clear as a controlled block.

The work could only be done under a full Eastern Freeway closure. Closures on a project of this scale are planned months ahead, run to the minute, and carry multiple trades working simultaneously to maximise every hour the freeway is shut. There is no provision for running over. We sequenced the cutting so that saws and crane worked in continuous rotation — cutting the next section while the last was being lifted — and the footpath was off the structure and the freeway handed back within the closure window.

Cutting rather than breaking mattered here for a structural reason as much as a programme one. The bridge remained in service either side of the closure, so the deck could not be subjected to impact loading or vibration, and no debris could be permitted to fall. Sawing removed only what was marked, left a clean face for the new structure to tie into, and produced no overbreak requiring remedial work before the widening could proceed.