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| Mon, 22 November 2010 Expressway opening shortly |
By Kabeer Yousuf - MUSCAT —
The highly-expected iconic infrastructure of the Sultanate, the six-lane Muscat Expressway, is all set to be dedicated to the nation after an elongated work schedule of day in and day out, on November 24. The road will be opened in two phases, according to official sources. The first phase of the 54 km dual carriageway which is from the Inter- change 3 to IC 10 B Mainline along with the loops and ramps (wherever possible) will be dedicated to the Sultanate for public usage on the midnight of Wednesday, according to official sources at the Galfar Engineering Contracting Company.
Facilitating easy flow of traffic, the opening way to the landmark road, from Qurum to the IC 3, has already been in use much earlier. The second phase, the Al Falaj Street that connects the road with the Naseem roundabout in Barka will be opened on November 28, thus dedicating the whole project to the Sultanate. “We are privileged to be continuously becoming a part of the nation-building process,” says Dr P Mohammed Ali, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Galfar Engineering Contracting Company. Nevertheless, he shared some of his brush up with complexities during the years-long construction process, with the Observer, in a recent interview.
“During the long process of construction, we have faced three most convoluted engineering impediments on the Interchange 7 near American School, 10B Nizwa Interchange, and the Wadi al Khoudh and we have successfully overcome all these hassles and are all set to dedicate the road to the nation,” he added. Sultan bin Hamdoon 
al Harthy, Chairman of Muscat Municipality, in a recent speech termed the expressway as “a pyramid of Muscat, which will roll out many opportunities for the city in terms of business, infrastructure and culture”.
One of the additions on the expressway, the MSE (Mechanically Stabilised Earth Wall) has been adjudicated as the highest MSE in the world by the architecture world. "There are two large MSE's that we have made use of in the construction of the expressway," says Grant Gellatly, Project Director, Muscat Expressway Project, Galfar Engineering and Contracting SAOG. "One is at Kms 28 and the other is at Kms 30. One of them is 70 metres high and they are about 300 to 400 metres long," Grant explained.
