The Combined Bypass Railway and Tangent Road Project Near the Station of Mechelen (Belgium)

Abstract

In extending the existing railway infrastructure from Brussels to Antwerp, a new double track railway is foreseen as a by-pass along the railway station in the city of Mechelen. In combination to this project, an underground parking building and a new road connection indicated as the tangent-project between the southern and northern part of the city and in improving and extending the accessibility of the railway station will be built. The alignment of the road connection is situated in parallel to and even underneath the alignment of the new railway by-pass for half of the project. This results in a variation of heavy concrete road tunnel and railway viaduct infrastructures in an urban context. In designing the project, the process in obtaining a building permit in the city center was very difficult dealing with these historical and urban environmental conditions. A lot of attention was given to the architectural integration of concrete structures resulting in among other things integrated and curved double track railway viaducts. A variation of designs can be found in the application of inner and external post-tensioning in different types of railway viaducts (with and without outer beams) and skew railway slab bridges with outer main beams in rounded shapes. In December 2017, the project will be finished.