Building and repairing bridges and roads is very important for the infrastructure of any country. Many parts of Indonesia, and especially eastern Indonesia, really depend on roads and bridges for transportation of goods and services. Ferries are important too, right? Without a well built and well maintained network of roads and bridges, Indonesia would be in trouble. The Indonesian and Australian governments are working together to make sure this does not happen. Hence the Eastern Indonesia National Roads Improvement Project or EINRIP.

Australia is providing Indonesia with an interest free loan of $300 million. This money is being used to improve the condition of the national road and bridge network in most provinces in Eastern Indonesia. Australia is also providing about $28 million in grant assistance to help with the planning and design of these roads and bridges. Some existing bridges are being repaired although in many situations new bridges will be built to replace bridges in poor condition.

At the moment, EINRIP is designing a 98 metre long bridge that will be part of the Tohpati-Kusamba road in Bali. This bridge will be a pre-stressed concrete girder bridge. The bridge will cost around 12 billion rupiah.
Another bridge which has just been designed is a 260 metre long bridge in North Sulawesi. This bridge crosses a wide river that often has very high and rapid floodwaters. The new bridge will be higher and longer than the old one. This bridge will cost around Rp 31 billion.

Even though these two bridges have different styles and designs, they all are constructed to support their own weight (dead weight) and the weight of the traffic that must go across them. Bridge designers or civil engineers must also consider other factors such as the weather, strong winds and earthquakes when designing bridges.