The Shoalhaven community is invited to take a walk across the brand-new Nowra Bridge to mark its opening.
In what's sure to be an historic moment for the region, the twilight walk across the new bridge is being held on Thursday 23 February - and all of the community are welcome to join from 5.30pm to 8pm with the walk to start from 6pm.
The walk will thank the community for their patience as the new bridge was constructed and honour the connection it now creates between Aboriginal lands and local communities, beginning with a unique Welcome to Country just before the sun sets.
To make it easier for the community to get to and from the event, Transport for NSW will run free shuttle buses through Nowra and Bomaderry, with timetable and route details to be released soon on the NSW Government's website.
This event will also mark the start of the final work needed before vehicles can enjoy the new landmark, with traffic expected to be using the bridge from early March.
Since construction began in mid-2020, the project has seen an impressive number of feats, including:
- Supporting 2,200 workers, with 65 per cent being local to the area
- Having more than 890,000 hours of work put in
- Using 22,000 tonnes of material to construct the temporary rock platform
- Installing 39 steel piles, 19 concrete double-T deck segments and nine piers - with each of those deck segments using 360 cubic metres of reinforced concrete (which is enough to fill up 60 concrete trucks)
As well as the new four-lane concrete bridge over Shoalhaven River, the project is upgrading intersections, re-purposing the existing bridge to be a footpath and cycleway, and installing additional lanes on the Princes Highway at Nowra.
This will reduce congestion, improve travel times, bolster access for freight and emergency services, increase community amenity and support traffic demand well into the future.
The entire $342 million Nowra Bridge Project including the planning and construction, is on track for completion by 2024. The Australian and NSW governments jointly funded the $310 million construction phase.
