The Department of Public Works will begin waterproofing work on the two decks of the viaduct on the 2nd to ensure the bridge's preservation and safety. As a result, the GC-3 will be closed for 15 days northbound and another 15 days southbound.
The contractor's workers have surveyed the more than 18.000 square meters of both decks with ground-penetrating radar to detect the roughness of the concrete hidden under the current asphalt and try to improve it when the work begins.
The Department of Public Works, Infrastructure, Architecture, and Housing of the Gran Canaria Island Council, headed by Vice President Augusto Hidalgo, has begun posting signs for the closures and detours that will affect the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Ring Road (GC-3) starting Sunday, August 2nd, due to waterproofing work on the two decks of the Guiniguada Viaduct. This essential work is necessary to guarantee the preservation, safety, and durability of this strategic infrastructure for island mobility and will require the complete closure (24 hours a day) of the viaduct in both directions: for the first 15 days, the northbound lanes (towards Tamaraceite or Arucas) will be closed, and for the second 15 days, the southbound lanes will be closed. Therefore, most of the traffic on the GC-3 will be diverted to the Avenida Marítima in the capital city of Gran Canaria.
Workers from Lopesan, the company awarded the waterproofing contract, installed the first signs last night indicating the road closure, which will take effect early Sunday morning, August 2nd. Two of these signs are located at the entrance to the Santo Domingo tunnel (past Salto del Negro) on the carriageway heading towards Tamaraceite. The other two have been placed on the San José tunnel road (GC-31), on the carriageway leading up from Avenida Marítima to the ring road. More signs will be added in the coming weeks to alert drivers who frequently use this road to the need to find alternative routes while the GC-3 carriageways are completely closed during August.
In addition to installing the signs, the contractor's workers who will carry out the waterproofing of the viaduct have taken advantage of the nighttime closures of the ring road in recent weeks (for resurfacing) to perform precise topographic measurements before starting the work. For this purpose, they used ground-penetrating radar to survey the more than 18.000 square meters of the two decks (northbound and southbound) that make up the Guiniguada viaduct. Thanks to the radar, they were able to detect and mark with paint the minor irregularities in the concrete beneath the asphalt roadway, so they can be located and addressed when the waterproofing work begins.
Due to the complexity of the waterproofing work, the project must be carried out during daylight hours. This necessitates a complete 24-hour closure of the roadway where work is underway. The closure is scheduled to last throughout August, with the northbound carriageway, closest to the sea, closing first on August 2nd. This carriageway will reopen 15 days later, while the southbound carriageway (landside) will remain closed, with the aim of reopening it around August 30th.
The construction schedule was designed following a specific traffic pattern study conducted by the Public Works and Infrastructure Technical Service, which concluded that August, and especially Sundays and the first weekdays of the week, register the lowest average daily traffic volume on this road. According to the analysis, between 5.000 and 10.000 fewer vehicles travel this route during this period than during the rest of the year, and on Sundays in August, there are 20.000 fewer vehicles than on weekdays in any other month of the year.
Likewise, the technical report indicates that the expected disruptions will be similar to those that usually occur on a weekday during the rest of the year on different roads on the island, especially during peak hours, so it is considered that the impact on mobility will be manageable through the use of alternative routes.
The Public Works Department has established that, during the northbound closure, traffic will be redistributed primarily through the San José tunnels (GC-31) to Avenida Marítima, and from there, through the Julio Luengo tunnels, towards the GC-2. In the case of the southbound closure, the diversions will be through the La Ballena tunnels (GC-23) towards Julio Luengo to Avenida Marítima and from there to the GC-1.
The Regional Ministry is considering the possibility of maintaining access to the Lomo Blanco neighborhood, and from there to Tafira or El Zurbarán, when the GC-3 is closed in the northbound direction, but only through the GC-31 (up the San José tunnels), not through the Ring Road itself.
This waterproofing work is part of the overall project to resurface 11 kilometers of the ring road, which the Regional Ministry of Public Works awarded last year for €18.722.343 and which has been underway for several months at night. The waterproofing corresponds to Lot 2 of this project, being carried out by Lopesan Asfaltos y Construcciones, and €2,2 million of the total cost will be spent on this work alone.
With the aim of minimizing disruption, the Cabildo requests the public's full cooperation during the works and recommends planning journeys in advance, consulting alternative routes and using public transport whenever possible.
