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
Causes and solutions prove elusive on an Oregon bridge project where two bents moved out of plumb during construction. The troubled was noticed in the winter on the $215 million U.S. 20: Pioneer Mountain-Eddyville highway near the Oregon coast. Joe Squire, project manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation, says that a lateral load from adjacent fill and sub-surface ground pressure may have caused the shifts in two of the 20 bents on the 10-bridge project. The project consists of a six-and-a-half mile section of new road that bypasses a 10-mile stretch of substandard highway. Six of the 10 bridges
In its latest hotly contested competition for federal aid, the Dept. of Transportation has awarded $293 million for 53 streetcar and bus projects around the country. Some of the funds will go for construction. Related Links: Complete list of winners The grants were in two categories: Six projects, including five streetcar lines, shared $130 million in Urban Circulator funds; and 47 projects divided $163 million in Bus and Bus Livability aid. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood, announcing the winners on July 8, said the grants are part of the Obama administration's community "livability" initiative, which links transportation planning and funding with
Marking the beginning of what India hopes will be an ongoing stream of public-private partnership deals, a consortium of Australia’s Leighton, the U.K.’s Balfour Beatty, France’s Vinci and the Hindustan Construction Co. submitted bids this month for the $1.2-billion concessionaire contract to build a 570-kilometer highway from Rajasthan to Gujarat. This road is the first of nine megaprojects conceived by the National Highways Authority of India. India has set a target for constructing 35,000 km of highways in the next five years under the National Highways Development Program. Out of the $60-billion investment, $40 billion is to come from the
When built, Brazil’s first high-speed railroad will speed commuters across the 530 kilometers between Rio de Janeiro and S�o Paulo in just one hour and 30 minutes. But the bidding process has been slowed due to a dispute over procurement rules between the government’s Agency of Land Transportation (ANTT) and the national Audit Court of Brazil (TCU), testing the patience of potential bidders. + Image Map: Brazilian Government Planned high-speed rail route might not be done in time for next World Cup. Aware of the increasing disillusionment among bidders for the line’s 40-year design-build-maintain-operate contact, the government and court appear
Construction has begun on a novel bascule road bridge that has a 19-meter-long, diagonally split opening span at Poole Harbour, England. Hochtief U.K. Ltd., Swindon, has some 20 months to complete the 140-m Twin Sails bridge under a $28-million contract. Rendering: Poole Council Unique design features overlapping box girders in lieu of a conventional bascule. The roughly 30-m-long opposing tapering steel-box-girder spans will pivot upward to allow boats to enter the harbor. When closed, the tip of each 1.5-m-deep span will cantilever over the opposite support by about 10 m. This arrangement overcomes the need for pins to connect a
Construction has begun on India’s strategic 8.8-kilometer-long, $363-million Rohtang Tunnel. Built at an altitude higher than 3,000 meters in the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas, it will provide an all-weather road link across the snow-capped Rohtang Pass. The tunnel will provide year-round road access to the remote regions of Lahaul-Spiti and Pangi Valley in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Conceived in 1983 and faced with many procedural delays, it is now being constructed by the Border Roads Organization under the Ministry of Defense. BRO awarded the project to a joint venture led by Austria’s Strabag A.G., Vienna, with
A new, one-month extension for Federal Aviation Administration programs, including the agency's airport construction grants, has been signed into law. President Obama signed the measure into law on July 2, one day before the previous stopgap was to expire. Final congressional approval came on June 30, when the Senate passed the measure. The House had cleared it one day earlier. The new stopgap is the 14th extension since September 2007, when the last multi-year FAA bill was enacted. The House and Senate have passed new multi-year FAA bills and lawmakers from the two chambers have been meeting to reconcile differences
Indiana and Kentucky are seeking to fast-track a new bridge over the Ohio River between Madison, Ind., and Milton, Ky. Using design-build to replace the badly deteriorated 3,181-ft-long steel-truss superstructure and modify the concrete piers means opening a new bridge in 2012, rather than finishing environmental processes in 2012, says Kevin Hetrick, INDOT project manager. Initial estimates peg the total cost at about $131 million. The federal government will pay $20 million through an ARRA TIGER grant. Indiana and Kentucky will split the remaining cost equally. INDOT plans to open bids on Sept. 15. The bridge will be closed in
The board of directors of Denver’s Regional Transportation District approved last month a public-private partnership consortium’s $2.085-billion proposal to build and operate 44 miles of new commuter rail, including a line serving Denver International Airport. Denver Transit Partners is sponsored by Fluor Enterprises Inc., a division of Irving, Tex.-based Fluor Corp., and Australia’s Macquarie Capital Group Ltd. They are joined by partners Ames Construction, Balfour Beatty Rail Inc., Alternate Concepts Inc. and HDR Inc. The proposal came in $300 million lower than RTD’s budget estimate of $2.4 billion for the Eagle P3 project. The bid also promises to open the
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