Ahighway improvement project that runs through a national park is serving as a test case for formalizing a road rating system similar to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design building rating system. Photo: DEA A road improvement project may be the first to be officially rated “green.” The 3.8-mile, $16-million U.S. 97 Lava Butte-South Century Drive upgrade in central Oregon runs through the Newberry National Monument. It is the furthest along of three projects the Oregon Dept. of Transportation will evaluate to determine if it will adopt standards set by Greenroads, unveiled by the University of Washington and CH2M
Florida Dept. of Transportation officials and their advisers aren’t likely to forget the year 2008. FDOT was trying to close on two different billion-dollar-plus public-private partnerships, but the financial markets were collapsing. In September, while still restructuring the year-delayed Port of Miami Tunnel (POMT) deal, FDOT accepted bids for a $2-billion Interstate 595 expansion. Just days later, emblematic of market conditions, the financial giant Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. “Credit was just not obtainable,” recalls Jeff Parker, founder of Jeffrey A. Parker & Associates Inc., Chilmark, Mass., a financial adviser to FDOT. “The bid assumed $900 million in private activity
How do you pack the construction of four new 14-mile- long lanes, 58 new bridges and 900,000 sq ft of retaining wall into an active highway carrying 200,000 daily vehicles and do it in four years? Virginia’s Capital Beltway expansion team would answer: Pack all the players into one room—early and often. Then, as Virginia Dept. of Transportation senior project manager Larry Cloyed says, the team has to live by the motto “Get it done.” The $1.35-billion reconstruction of the Capital Beltway—including the addition of two high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes in each direction—is being performed by a private concessionaire that
Acontractor has won a $5-million bonus for repaving 10,925 ft of runway in 120 days at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The new $348-million project, which re-opened on June 29, required two online concrete batch plants, intense planning and 17,000 ft worth of fencing to render the Bay Runway—the country’s second-longest—a construction work zone. Photo: Port Authority of NY and NJ Intense planning, collaboration enabled 11,000 ft of repaving in 120 days. Related Links: Rapid Runway Rehab Tutor Perini Civil Inc., Peekskill, N.Y., can win another $5-million bonus on its $210-million contract once it completes remaining
A massive effort to revamp the American air-traffic-control system from land-based to satellite-based equipment, dubbed NextGen, could result in greater flight efficiency and fuel cost savings at all major hubs by 2014, says Randolph Babbitt, Federal Aviation Administration chief. He also stressed the need for the next generation of land-side and air-side infrastructure. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" Babbitt urged members of the American Association of Airport Executives last month in Dallas to work toward implementing multimodalism. “We have to advance our infrastructure to NextGen standards,” he said. “It’s the only way to keep pace with the rest of
Advocates for a 269-mile magnetically levitated rail line between Las Vegas and Anaheim, Calif., are pressing the Federal Railroad Administration for $45 million originally appropriated in the six-year federal transportation bill in 2005. In an April 7 letter to FRA Administrator Joseph Szabo, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto described a scenario in which Nevada Dept. of Transportation repeatedly submitted scope of work plans since 2008, without receiving any response. “[We] steadfastly insist that the FRA comply with the Congressional mandate that the USDOT and the FRA take the steps necessary to allocate funding...for the maglev project,” she wrote. “We're
In Maine, contractors are “blowing up” bridges: They are inflating hollow carbon-fiber tubes on-site, bending them into arches and infusing them with resin. Filled with concrete, the bridges are ready to be decked, backfilled and paved. Acting as bridge arches for short spans, carbon tubes are inflated and filled with concrete by workers in Maine. Related Links: Dozens of Test Projects Later, Advocates Still Have Durable Dreams Material for Milk Containers Now Supports Railroad Traffic Brit E. Svoboda, chief executive of Advanced Infrastructure Technologies Inc., which owns the rights to the system, is hiking around the U.S. to promote its
Like any railroad crossing, the two short bridges completed this month at Fort Eustis, Va. will be expected to support 130 tons. Unlike typical crossings, however, they are made almost entirely of materials that once were used to contain milk and detergent. Contractors say plastic materials allowed for lighter equipment. Related Links: Dozens of Test Projects Later, Advocates Still Have Durable Dreams Bridge-in-a-Backpack Tech ‘Blows Up’ Next-Gen Bridges Working with Rutgers University, Axion International Holdings Inc., New Providence, N.J., developed proprietary polymer formulas that combine plastics to make an end product tougher than its ingredients. Sales partner Innovative Green Solutions
When John Hillman’s cell phone rings, out comes the tune of “Tom Sawyer,” released by the rock band Rush in 1981. The song is not just a favorite of Hillman’s—it comes as close to summing up his philosophy and personality as any one song could.
Hillman joined Swiss post-tensioning firm VSL in 1990 to work on a 385-m-long incrementally launched bridge in Utuado, Puerto Rico. Six months later, the project manager left the job. Hillman, then age 27, found himself in charge of completing a type of structure built only once before in the Western Hemisphere. And it was slowly collapsing. Photo: John Hillman It was an incrementally launched bridge being pushed across the piers by 1,000-ton rams supported on the abutments, says Elvin Wright, then VSL project superintendent. But the project was behind schedule and in trouble. Wright credits Hillman with saving the day.