The Federal Transit Administration approved last month the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority’s revised testing plan for eleven 30-year-old foundations that will be used to support piers for the new Dulles Metrorail extension in northern Virginia to Dulles International Airport. Photo: Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project Team Agency will begin tests on piers originally built in the 1970s to see if they can handle new light-rail system to Dulles Airport, after initial criticism. The concrete foundations, supported by concrete and steel caissons driven 50 to 60 ft deep, are among 13 that were installed by the Virginia Dept. of Transportation in the
From an ephiphany came an airport. Until 2004, Connecticut-based businessman and former bond trader Steve Peet knew little about Branson, Mo., the Ozark Mountain recreational hub.
A contractor last month completed relocation of a 1,800-ft-long flood-prone stretch of state Route 12 on Hatteras Island, N.C., but a longer-term plan to elevate other parts of the highway faces potential delays. RPC Contracting Inc., Kitty Hawk, N.C., began work in late November on a $439,600 lump-sum contract to shift the 1,800-ft stretch of roadway 23 ft to the west, placing it at the edge of the North Carolina Dept. of Transportation’s right-of-way through the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. Construction was completed by Dec. 11, after which the contractor would have faced liquidated damages of $5,000 per day.
As more of the world’s economies show signs of transitioning from recession to recovery, the relatively unscathed global environmental sector appears poised to resume its growth. Most of the markets that were strong before the recession—East Asia, Australia, and Western Europe—have remained active, thanks in part to their projects’ inherent size and scope. “It’s been said that Asia is leading the world out of recession, and that’s probably also true for the water market,” says Dan McCarthy, president and CEO of Overland Park, Kan.-based Black & Veatch’s global water business. Photo: Black & Veatch Asia is leading the recovery with
Skanska USA Building of Atlanta is overseeing a massive undertaking to replace all of the windows in the tornado-damaged Westin Peachtree Plaza of Atlanta. All 6,350 windows in the 73-story hotel will be replaced over a period of approximately 15 months. Hotel operations will continue throughout the replacement. Related Links: Value of Georgia’s New Contracts Fell 16% in August Evergreen Starts Work on $16-Million Cherokee Co. School Damage to the hotel occurred in March 2008 when a tornado hit downtown Atlanta and struck the Westin. The storm initially disabled 320 of the hotel’s 1,068 rooms. Skanska is working with architect
While the overall economy shows signs of slowly coming back to life, the airline industry continues to struggle. Over the past year, the combination of substantially lower passenger traffic, still-wobbly financial markets and nervous carriers has curtailed the revenue streams airports typically count on for major capital projects. Photo: McCarran International Airport Work on a $2.4-billion project at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas continues through 2009, even as other projects were put on hold. Photo: Denver International Airport Stimulus money came to the rescue of hundreds of airports with long-standing maintenance needs, including Denver International. Related Links: The Top
Engineers and contracting crews are breathing easier now that the most complex part has ended in building the $82-million Interstate 64 Kanawha River bridge project near Charleston, W.Va. With more than a year left to meet the project completion deadline, the bridge team already has secured a place in U.S. construction record books with a 760-ft main span of cast-in-place post-tensioned segmental box girders. That span is the longest of its type in the country, surpassing Houston’s Ship Channel Bridge by 10 ft. Photo: Brayman Construction Balanced cantilever construction has resulted in the country’s longest cast-in-place segmental box-girder main span,
One of President Obama’s final pitches for passage of the stimulus package was the uncompleted Fairfax County Parkway in northern Virginia. Although the Virginia Dept. of Transportation (VDOT) in 2004 allocated $89 million to complete a 2-mile segment adjacent to Fort Belvoir and Interstate 95, the project stalled due to its route across a portion of the Army’s Engineer Proving Ground (EPG), an 820-acre tract heavily contaminated from years of ordnance testing and training activities. Fairfax, Va. Photo: Jim Parsons / ENR New road will carry thousands of workers to government offices in suburban Virginia. Related Links: Stimulus: A Snapshot
Next year, officials at Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC) in California will wrap up a $1.3-billion modernization program that adds more than 840,000 sq ft of new terminal space, a 1.6-million-sq-ft consolidated rental car and parking garage, and a streamlined internal road network. Photo: Jim Parson / ENR Fast Track San Jose airport expansion, including a new terminal, used a design-build approach that helped shave some seven years and $3 billion off original estimates. The program only got under way in mid-2007 and was originally projected to cost more than three times as much and take 10
Congress’s fast action on the $787.2-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in February brought some much-needed cheer to the nation’s transportation contractors. With state DOT budgets withered by the recession, gas prices and financial market upheaval, contractors expected the influx of more than $49.3 billion in immediate highway, transit, and airport funding to reenergize the market and, hopefully, keep them busy until the larger economy begins to rebound. But more than six months after President Obama signed ARRA into law, many in the industry are still waiting for those hoped-for effects to kick in. Photo: Flatiron Washington, N.C., bypass