CGAL was awarded, through a public bidding process, the construction of Section II of the Durango-Mazatlán Freeway. This subsection entails a total length of 6.4 mi of type A highway, between kilometers 158+080 and 168+400, and includes 15 tunnels: seven with four lanes, with a total length of 1.46 mi, and the other eight with two lanes, with a total length of 1.32 mi, making for a total length of 2.79 mi. Likewise, it includes 11 bridges: nine are of four lanes, with two special bridges between them, Guamúchil II and El Carrizo (a cable-stayed bridge), and two of two lanes, adding up to a total length of 1.55 mi. Finally, earthwork, drainage, asphaltic concrete paving, complementary works and signage were included.
The area’s complicated topography forced the work’s projection to present a 70% density of structures (tunnels and bridges). This makes the construction of Section II of the Durango-Mazatlán Freeway one of Mexico’s most important highway engineering works, in addition to reducing travel time from six hours to two-and-a-half hours, thus integrating the northwest of the country.
Additionally, the culmination of the Durango- Mazatlán Freeway project will allow a notable improvement in the economic life of the country, making feasible the crossing of people and goods from the Port of Mazatlán, to the ports of Houston, Altamira or Galveston, at great speed and low cost, which will offer the possibility of establishing new industrial zones or expand the existing ones; it will foster the large-scale production of goods, as a result of easing their transportation, and will promote the creation of new jobs, which will translate in an unavoidable economic increase in the areas that benefit from this project, and will simultaneously impact the protection of the environment by reducing atmospheric emissions from fossil fuel combustion due to its high specification routing and grading characteristics.