In 2010, the Blackmores Sydney Running Festival underwent a massive change to their course which was brought about by sustained growth of the Event and its need to create a better traffic flow through the City.

The Marathon Event is held through the streets of Inner Sydney and as such, closes a number of important routes through Australia’s busiest centre.Pont3, the promoter of the Event, in consultation with the RTA and the NSW Police designed a new course which enabled a number of key streets to remain open during the Marathon. However, in order to achieve the ultimate design, a bridge would need to be placed over Park St, in the City Centre, from one side of Hyde Park to another.iEDM were approached for assistance in design and delivery of the bridge for the Marathon. Items of special consideration were:

• Dynamic Loading and engineering capability of taking a specified number of runners through the span;
• Night time construction and traffic / pedestrian management and occupational health and safety through such a busy street;
• Sight lines for traffic lights and protection of bridge footings whilst the bridge was in place and the road operating with normal traffic;
• Stairs and block walls which were heritage listed infastructure; and,
• Ramps appropriate for the elite Wheelchair Marathon Athletes.

The bridge was used by nearly 3000 Athletes and the traffic through Sydney had improved significantly due to the changes that Pont3 had designed.We would like to congratulate Pont3 for successfully managing and promoting such a world class Event. We were very proud to be associated with such a well run and prestigous Event and look forward to any opportunity to work with the group again. Details of the Event can be found at http://www.sydneyrunningfestival.com.au/ .