FCC has finished building the piers for San Marcos Viaduct. Pier number 4, which towers a dizzy 208 metres in height, makes this the second-tallest viaduct in the world, nodding only to Millau Viaduct in France.

The viaduct stands on the highway between Mexico City and Tuxpán, in the section between Nuevo Necaxa and Ávila Camacho. It will make travel between Mexico's capital city and the Caribbean coast a great deal faster and more convenient.

This 36-kilometre-long section, which is being built by a joint venture pairing FCC México with the Mexican firm ICA, crosses the eastern Sierra Madre mountains. The extreme roughness of the terrain has required the construction of six tunnels and seven viaducts, adding up to a total of more than six kilometres.

San Marcos Viaduct was designed by FCC Construcción's Technical Services. It is 850 metres long and has 180-metre spans. Its single deck is 18.7 metres wide, enough to accommodate the highway's traffic in both directions.

Pier 4, which is 208 metres tall, was built with the help of self-climbing formwork. The most advanced formwork and concrete-pumping equipment in existence was used in the pier's construction, enabling work to proceed at a high-performance pace without a single hitch, despite the difficulties posed by access issues.

Work is currently proceeding on the construction of the deck, a progressive cantilever hopping from pier to pier. The viaduct is scheduled to be finished by autumn 2012.

FCC in Mexico

FCC's Mexican subsidiary is a regular participant in major Mexican infrastructure projects, such as Coatzacoalcos Underwater Tunnel, an exemplary piece of work that created a way to travel between the most important petrochemical complex in the state of Veracruz and the Gulf of Mexico. Globalvía, another FCC Group company, built the road between Nuevo Necaxa and Tihuatlán and has been operating it since 2007.