New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority Work has already begun on improvements to Harold Interlocking in New York City's borough of Queens. Related Links: View DOT's announcement View NY Gov. Cuomo's press release Rail projects on the Northeast Corridor are the major winners as the U.S. Dept. of Transportation redistributed $2 billion in high-speed rail aid that Florida rejected earlier this year. The grant awards, announced by US DOT Secretary Ray LaHood on May 9, will include about $1.7 billion for infrastructure work. That will be a welcome infusion to engineering firms and construction contractors around the country, and ease
A federal appeals court in San Francisco sent the state of Alaska back to looking at all its options after its May 4 ruling shut down a proposed 51-mile, $500-million highway from Juneau to a new ferry landing in Katzehin. Photo courtesy Scott Logan/Alaska Transportation Priorities Project Proposed road would be along a route that is prone to avalanches. The decision by the U.S. Ninth Circuit court upholds a 2009 lower court opinion that the project’s final environmental impact statement was not valid because it did not include an alternative that would improve transportation with existing assets, namely upgraded ferry
A supplementary, $50 billion (¥4.015 trillion) budget passed by the Japanese Diet last week to aid regions damaged by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, will focus resources on quickly repairing roads and port facilities, debris removal and support for disaster survivors. A second, much larger supplementary budget is expected to follow for full-scale reconstruction later this summer, according to the Tokyo-based, English language newspaper, the Daily Yomiuri. By Tom Sawyer Supplementary budget passed this week by the Japanese Diet to fund disaster reconstruction and relief after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami has $7.5 billion to support
It is lucky for Aqua Tower architect Jeanne Gang that developer James R. Loewenberg thinks the Oscar Niemeyer architecture of Brasilia, the half-century-old capital city of Brazil, is monotonous and static. If not, he might never have hired Gang for one of the four residential towers of the 28-acre Lakeshore East multi-use development in Chicago. And if that hadn’t happened, there would be no Aqua Tower. Related Links: On Her Precipice “Brasilia is the most boring place because all the buildings were done by the same person,” says Loewenberg, the co-CEO of Magellan Development Group and president of Loewenberg Architects,
If a storm surge threatens New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain this hurricane season, a hefty, cellular-style cofferdam will reduce the risk of it pushing into the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal and flooding areas of the city. Photo By Angelle Bergeron Alberici’s circular-cell cofferdams eliminated the need for a 25,000-cu-yd tremie seal slab Photo Courtesy Of USACE Related Links: Seabrook Floodgate Complex: Design Saves Time, Cost and Concrete The interim structure designed by Alberici Constructors, St. Louis, Mo., will allow the contractor to build the permanent Seabrook Floodgate Complex in the dry. Two rows of circular-cell cofferdams now close the canal
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which exploded a Mississippi River levee late on May 2 to relieve pressure on floodwalls at Cairo, Ill., is starting preparations for a similar diversion in Louisiana next week. The Corps pumped explosive slurry from barges into pipes in the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway in Missouri, flooding 130,000 acres of farmland to drop river levels. Water streamed through the breached levee at a rate of 550,000 cu ft per second. The river level at Cairo fell to 60.2 ft by noon on May 3 from 61.72 ft late the previous day. “We executed the
A survey of 176 U.S. mayors released May 3 shows that 93% want to see urban and metropolitan areas directly receive a larger share of overall federal transportation funds. The report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors says that if cities� share of the transportation-aid pie is not increased, only 7% of mayors would back a gas-tax hike. More would favor a gas-tax boost if a larger share of the total went to local roads and bridges (89% of those surveyed) or public transit (65%). The report, sponsored by Parsons Brinckerhoff, New York City, comes as U.S. lawmakers work on
The U.S. Dept. of Transportation has sent New Jersey a second and final notice, directing the state to repay $271.1 million in federal funds disbursed for a $9.1-billion rail-tunnel project that Gov. Chris Christie (R) canceled last October. The Access to the Region's Core was to be a nine-mile commuter rail link under the Hudson River, from Secaucus, N.J., to midtown Manhattan. DOT's Federal Transit Administration in November issued its first formal demand that the state repay the money. New Jersey reviewed the amount of the repayment claim and examined FTA project records. In a final decision issued on April
A construction management contractor wasted no time in responding to the damage inflicted to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport by an April 22 tornado and still expects to complete the ongoing renovation on schedule. Photo By AP Worldwide/Emily M. Rasinski Thanks to swift contractor response, the Lambert-St. Louis airport quickly resumed operations after the tornado. Kwame Building Group, St. Louis, is three years into the four-year, $70-million Airport Experience Program, which entails major interior renovations to terminal 1 and concourses A and C. “We had just started the terminal rehab when the tornado hit,” says Mike Minges, Kwame senior vice president.
Utilities in the Southeast are rebuilding the electricity grid after deadly tornadoes and storms damaged powerplants as well as transmission and distribution lines. Photo: Courtesy TVA TVA crews scramble to restore more than 90 transmission lines that were knocked down. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that 226 tornadoes touched down between April 27 and April 28, leaving a swath of destruction and 334 dead. Hardest hit within the energy infrastructure system were utilities in Tennessee, northern Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. The Tennessee Valley Authority alone has 4,000 employees and contractors working on repairs. By May 3, TVA crews
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