Legacy Way Wins International Tunnelling Award

The Legacy Way project has won the Major Tunnelling Project of the Year (over $500 million) at the International Tunnelling Awards held in London.

Transcity, the contractor building Brisbane City Council’s 4.6 kilometre tunnel, has been acknowledged on an international scale as the clear winner in an award which celebrates the most innovative and successful projects from around the world.

Transcity is a joint venture between Spanish tunnelling and civil infrastructure giant Acciona Infrastructures, Italian tunnelling specialists Ghella and Brisbane’s local experts BMD Constructions (BMD). Transcity is responsible for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of Legacy Way.

Brisbane’s Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said Transcity’s win at the International Tunnelling Awards came as no surprise.

“Council takes great pride in its reputation as Australia’s new world city and the world-class construction being delivered on Legacy Way is a credit to the work being undertaken by Transcity,” Cr Quirk said.

“The appointment of Transcity to design and build Legacy Way has brought a wealth of international experience and expertise to Brisbane to deliver this vital project for the city’s transport network.

“We chose Transcity’s bid because of its outstanding value for money for Brisbane’s ratepayers by combining international experience with innovative design, resulting in strong community outcomes.”

Transcity Project Director, Fernando Fajardo said the win was a fantastic achievement and confirmed that Transcity’s performance is world class.

“We are very proud of Transcity’s achievements in delivering Legacy Way through many innovations in safety, design and construction since works began in early 2011,” Mr Fajardo said.

“Through the hard work and dedication of the entire Transcity team, we have been able to achieve great success, including world record-breaking tunnel boring machine excavation rates.

“At Legacy Way we have been able to achieve a record 49.68 metres excavation in a 24h hour period, 258.3 metres in a week and 858.1 metres in one month,” Mr Fajardo said.

“Our tunnel boring machines completed their tunnelling journey three and six months ahead of schedule and records such as these have not been seen anywhere else in the world using 12.4 metre diameter TBMs.”

The project is due to open to traffic in mid-2015.

Legacy Way is Brisbane City Council’s 4.6km road tunnel that will connect Brisbane’s western and inner northern suburbs. It is the fourth project in Council’s TransApex plan, designed to reduce congestion and increase connectivity on Brisbane’s road network.

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BMD is a national group of companies engaged in engineering design, construction and land development for clients and partners in the urban development, transport infrastructure and resources and energy sectors.

Since 1979, BMD has employed a relationship based business model founded on certainty, collaboration and performance.

With approximately 1,500 staff throughout Australia, BMD has the resources and experience to deliver projects ranging in size from $1 million to over $1 billion and is currently ranked 36^th in the 2013 BRW’s Top 500 Private Companies list and 3^rd in the Brisbane Business News’ Top 100 Companies.