The Brussels Eastern Ring Road (R0) has been closed since 22:00 on Friday between the Genappe and Groenendael interchanges in the direction of Brussels and will reopen at 04:00 on Monday.
The work in progress – carried out by Sofico, the Walloon motorway network operator, and the Walloon public service (SPW) Mobilité et Infrastructures – is keeping around a hundred people busy 24 hours a day. Over the next two weekends in August, work will be completed on the rehabilitation and safety improvements to the section of the R0 between Braine-l’Alleud and the Flemish regional boundary.
This weekend, it is the section between Waterloo and the regional boundary that is being treated. Despite the rain on Saturday morning, operations on the top layer of the surface went well and are now complete. Some 4,000 tonnes of asphalt have been removed and will be replaced before 04:00 on Monday.
Around thirty lorries are being used for the job, as well as several pavers, including a 4.4 m wide one specially brought in from France.
Road paving requires major coordination and minute precision – on a grand scale. Credit: Canva
The “wearing layer” is being removed to a depth of 4 cm. However, some of the areas in the worst condition are paved to a depth of 10 cm. Of the 30,000 m2 total surface area that will be treated, this concerns 1,500 m2.
Work to fit the foundation layer began on Saturday afternoon with surface asphalting starting at 19:00. This sees several machines advance abreast across the entire width of the road in order to avoid longitudinal joints, which are sources of cracks and subsequent damage.
These operations lasted until 03:00 on Sunday morning. From 04:00, the road marking work began. Two other sections will be treated over the coming weekends, with the aim of completing the entire €3 million worksite before the start of the new school year.
