Image Courtesy WisDOT Lunda Construction crews are placing steel-truss support towers fore and aft of Pier 22, which sank 2.5 ft. WisDOT has yet to schedule reopening the bridge to traffic, pending permanent repairs. Related Links: Piling Corrosion Blamed For Sagging Wisconsin Bridge Engineers Puzzle Over Cause, Fixes for Sagging Wisconsin Bridge As a temporary fix, workers are erecting steel-truss support towers under the sagging Leo Frigo Bridge on Interstate 43 in Green Bay, Wis., and lateral supports at the top of the damaged pier as investigators continue their examination of the 8,000-ft structure.Lunda Construction Co. of Black River Falls,
Photo Courtesy of NCRMA Many rail capacity upgrade projects require crews to add extra lines of track while trains continue to operate on existing lines. Related Links: Oil Boomlet Fuels North Dakota Roadwork and Puts Pressure on Aggregate Costs For Panamax Port Expansions, The Freight Wait is Almost Over L.A. Commuter Rail Line to Roll Out First Positive Train Control System in U.S. Construction firms working in the freight rail sector are benefitting from increased investment by U.S. railroad companies over the past decade. But freight infrastructure work is barreling ahead, thanks to a huge influx of capacity upgrade projects
Photo Courtesy NDDOT North Dakota's largely rural and low-volume roads need reinforcing to handle the heavy volume of trucks. Related Links: Oil Boom Fuels Freight Rail Renaissance Bakken Shale Field Pushing East Coast Rail Projects Bakken Shale Extraction Sparks A Construction Booom Labor, materials and weather are challenging contractors in North Dakota during a highway construction season that is unprecedented thanks to the oilfields boom. There are 600 projects ongoing this year, worth some $630 million, compared to some 300 projects totaling $311 million last year.More work is coming. The North Dakota legislature recently appropriated $1.64 billion for highway improvement
Photo Courtesy of Port of Long Beach Crews use a novel surface casing removal process to remove old oil wells. Related Links: Long Beach's Long-term View Long Beach, Calif., Approves $1-billion Bridge Replacement Project As the Port of Long Beach, Calif., moves forward with its 10-year, $4-billion modernization program, two of its largest components are seeing sharp cost increases. The $1-billion Gerald Desmond Bridge project faces a 15% budget increase, while the price tag on the $1.2-billion Middle Harbor project has now risen by $29.5 million.Much of these increases occurred because the port was built on an oil field, with
Related Links: Redesign Required For $4.1-billion Project's Pontoons Cracks Delay Work at Floating Bridge Project in Washington State Construction of 77 concrete pontoons for the replacement of the world's longest floating bridge has reached the halfway point. Redesigned cycle 3 pontoons are floating toward the Seattle jobsite.The new $954-million, 7,710-ft-long State Route 520 bridge connecting Seattle to points east across Lake Washington is part of a larger $4.13-billion project.Joint-venture prime contractor Kiewit-General-Mason is following a sequence of six pontoon cycles. Tugboats began towing the first two cycle 3 pontoons to the lake in mid-October, with others right behind. Cycle 3
Related Links: ASHRAE Illuminating Engineering Society of North America The updated energy standard for buildings includes big revisions to building envelope, lighting and mechanical appliance requirements. The changes make the 2013 update 40% to 50% more stringent than the 2004 version, according to ASHRAE, which recently published the standard.ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2013, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, incorporates 110 addenda that reflect changes to the 2010 energy standard.The prescriptive window-to-wall ratio remains 40%, but stricter fenestration provisions require double-glazed windows in many climates and establish a minimum visible-transmittance/solar-heat-gain-coefficient ratio to allow daylighting with minimal solar gain.Minimum efficiencies are
Photo Courtesy of HKS Group Developer is considering trimming height of pivoting doors from 95 to 80 ft. Related Links: Minnesota Vikings Stadium Thanks mostly to a stronger market, bids are coming in over budget for the estimated $975-million Minnesota Vikings football stadium in Minneapolis. Work is scheduled to begin next month and be completed in 2016.The Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority—the public developer—says negotiations between subcontractors and construction manager Mortenson Construction are ongoing. The design by HKS Group will not change, but some specifications may be altered, says MSFA.For instance, the height of pivoting doors may go from 95 ft
Related Links: Airports Peg Their Five-Year Capital Needs At $71 Billion Frustated Airport Officials Call Out Feds, Airlines With sequestration and a government shutdown looming last month, U.S. airport officials kept their focus on their major goals: increasing passenger facility charges (PFCs) for airport construction and garnering public support for Next Generation satellite-based technology for air traffic control.At their annual meeting, held late last month in San Jose, Calif., members of Airports Council International-North America fretted over the possibility that the shutdown might usher in a repeat dip into the Airport Improvement Program, which is meant to fund improvements at
Related Links: Transit Builders Buoyed By Ridership Figures Frustration With Politics Flavors Transportation Expo Like their bridge and highway counterparts, U.S. mass-transit builders are catching the public-private partnership bug. But some issues pose challenges, such as the environmental permitting process and the uncertainty of long-term federal funding."State-of-good-repair projects are good candidates for P3s, but the private sector needs clarity of timeframes," said Karen Hedlund, the Federal Railroad Administration deputy administrator. Speaking to attendees of the American Public Transportation Association, she noted that transit agencies might offer stipends for unsolicited proposals to "telegraph serious intent" about pursuing P3s.Unlike highway projects, on
Photo Courtesy of Bechtel McCullough at Hanford project site. Related Links: DOE Hanford Site Vitrification Plant Pushes Construction Deadlines DOE Inspector General's Audit Report of Hanford Vitrification Plant Design Control PDF Sept. 24 DOE Hanford Tank Waste Retrieval, Treatment, and Disposition Framework Report PDF Peggy McCullough, named in July as Bechtel National project director for the high-level nuclear-waste treatment plant at the U.S. Energy Dept.'s Hanford site in eastern Washington state, inherited a $12.2-billion project beset by delays and cost overruns since work began a decade ago, with numerous technical, budget and procedural challenges. The complex facility will turn 56
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