State transportation officials are avoiding weeks or even months of wait time in inspecting underwater bridge components by using the latest in sonar imaging technology. The method’s potential will become the focus of a federal study next year. Photo: Randalls Photography Advanced technology helped inspectors get images of underwater bridge piers and footings when diving was too dangerous. This spring’s record floods posed high risks for the 80-year-old Sorlie Bridge, which connects Grand Forks, N.D., and East Grand Forks, Minn. Flowing 30 ft higher than normal, the fast-moving Red River of the North engulfed the 605-ft-long, two-span truss structure’s timber
The Chicago Transit Authority has awarded a construction-management contract to Parsons Brinckerhoff for a rail replacement and tunnel rehabilitation project on the system’s Blue Line subway, which connects the downtown business district with O’Hare International Airport. The $88-million project is one of the first in Chicago to be fully funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It involves replacement of 31,000 existing wooden half ties with new concrete half ties and 6,200 track feet of stone ballast with new concrete slab and direct fixation fasteners. The project also includes the installation of 29,000 ft of new rail
A cathedral-arch bridge—the nation’s longest at 525 meters—is inching toward completion in a rural patch of northern Nevada three years after the original contractor left the project. The 90-m-tall structure, which spans Galena Creek, is part of the $600-million, 8.5-mile Interstate 580 extension between Reno and Carson City, now millions of dollars over budget and four years late. Photo: Massmedia Soaring crossing over Galena Creek is part of delayed I-580 extension. Photo: Massmedia New freeway will ease traffic on busy rural U.S 395. It is the most costly project in state transportation history, requiring pavement maintenance cuts to pay for
Indiana has requested $71.4 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds to improve the congested Norfolk Southern rail line that connects Chicago to Detroit. The Indiana Dept. of Transportation has proposed upgrading eight locations between Porter and the Illinois state line that would reduce delay time by 61% and save 752 gallons of fuel each week. � The application says the proposal "addresses the single most delay-prone intercity rail passenger corridor in the country, doing so in a way that provides both stand-alone congestion relief benefits as well as a path towards development of the lane as a
Construction of a cofferdam nearly 800 m long at the Eastmain-1-A intake was one of his biggest challenges, says Denis Groleau, Eastmain site manager. It had to be built out from the banks of the reservoir by dumping material off the end of the advancing dam into water up to 21 m deep. Photo: Hydro-Québec Related Links: Peaceful Transition: Native people and Hydro-Québec share benefits of big project The key issue was to determine the ideal distance between the advancing face of the crushed-aggregate core and the riprap of the lateral embankments. The solution, he found, was not fancy modeling
Years ago, dam-builders came to develop the vast hydroelectric potential of the remote James Bay region of northern Québec. They called the region barren because it had no agriculture and was sparsely settled by indigenous people who lived off the land. When those people, the Crees, found the dam-builders changing their land without permission, they fought back. They won some court battles but were overwhelmed by the political and economic forces that were driving the big project. Still, the Crees succeeded in getting the governments and companies behind it to agree to meet some of their needs for social and
A joint venture of Archer Western Contractors Ltd., Atlanta, and Watsonville, Calif.-based Granite Construction Co. was awarded a $179-million contract by the North Carolina Turnpike Authority for a major portion of the Western Wake Freeway in North Carolina. The contract covers 40% of the 12.6-mile-long project. The Archer-Granite segment includes construction of 34 bridges, noise and retaining walls and drainage systems. Financing for the project will be provided by a combination of toll revenue bonds, state appropriation bonds and a federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan.
Call it a sidewalk shed or bridge: pedestrian protection by any name is viewed as a Big Apple eyesore to many, including local building officials and the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Through a design competition, they are trying to improve the covers, which they say number 6,000 and add up to more than 1 million linear ft of unsightliness. Photo: Sawyer / ENR There are more than 6,000 sidewalk sheds in New York City that many consider ugly. Photo: Sawyer / ENR Competition may boost protection. On Aug. 13, the New York City Dept. of
The board of the North Texas Tollway Authority has hired Prairie Link Constructors LLC, a team composed of Fluor EPCM Services, Irving, Texas, and Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Inc., Atlanta, to build Phase 4 of state Highway 161 in the agency’s first design-build contract, worth $414 million. The winning effort was 32% lower than the authority’s original $610-million estimate for the project. Prairie Link Constructors also includes the Fort Worth office of AECOM Technology Corp. as designer, Richardson, Texas-based Halff Associates for drainage design, and PSI, Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., to handle independent quality assurance and control. The phase includes 6.5 miles
Virginia has shelved plans to add 56 miles of high-occupancy toll lanes to the congested I-95/395 corridor outside Washington, D.C., due in part to concerns that bond markets may be unreceptive to the state’s latest transportation venture. The project was set to reach commercial close this month with the consortium of Fluor Enterprises, Irving, Texas, and Australia-based Transurban Group and start construction in mid-2010. But citing “challenging credit market conditions,” Virginia Transportation Secretary Pierce Homer said on Aug. 14 the initiative would not go forward at this time. He added that local government and community concerns also contributed to postponing
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