Work on a major Sharjah-Dubai bridge that will increase road capacity to 17,700 cars per hour from the current 9,900, is on schedule, with the project on track to be completed by the third quarter of 2018.

According to a Gulf News report, the UAE’s Ministry of Infrastructure Development has confirmed that a nine-lane bridge will be open by August 2018, and that traffic will be diverted away from heavily congested routes, such as the Al Ittihad Road and the Shaikh Mohammad bin Zayed Road.

Ahmad Alhammadi, director of the Roads Department at the MoID, said that the $54.4 million bridge on Emirates Road is under construction at Sharjah’s Al Badea area. The bridge is located between Emirates Road and the Maleha highway, which consists of six lanes on Emirates Road and three lanes on the Sharjah-Maleha Road.

“The project will be completed by the third quarter of 2018 and once completed, will increase the capacity of the road from 9,900 vehicles per hour to 17,700 vehicles per hour,” said Alhammadi, in the Gulf News report.

“The bridge will contribute to reducing the journey time for motorists, and will solve the problem of traffic congestion coming from Dubai in the evening due to the slow trucks heading towards Sharjah and the northern emirates.”

He added that the project would expand Emirates Road from three to six lanes and to also repair damaged parts of the road at Intersection No.7 on the Al Dhaid-Maleha Road.