When he first met U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Col. Paul E. Owen, Roland Lewis was quite impressed. "He was, literally, a rocket scientist," says Lewis, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance.
Jim Crites has a Zen-like philosophy of balance that informs all he does. It led him to leave the Marine Corps to spend more time with family and landed him at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), where he has influenced expansion, sustainability, maintenance and every other aspect as executive vice president of operations.
Related Links: New York Commuter Derailment Highlights Lack of Positive Train Control Investment L.A. Commuter Rail Line to Roll Out First Positive Train Control System in U.S. A fatal New York train derailment on Dec. 1 on a Metro-North Railroad commuter train, which appears to be the result of a lapse in the solo engineer's consciousness, has politicians demanding comprehensive, industry-wide implementation of positive train controls (PTC)—a step advocated by the National Transportation Safety Board for decades and one the rail industry already has been struggling to achieve.In a Dec. 4 statement, American Public Transportation Association (APTA) President Michael Melaniphy
Related Links: Virginia Takes Steps To Propel Two Transportation Projects Proposed Tolls On Existing Road Ignite Lawsuit Public-private partnerships in U.S. transportation got a big legal "treat" on Oct. 31, when the Virginia Supreme Court overruled a lower court's decision against the state's P3 legislation.In May, the Portsmouth circuit court ruled in favor of Danny Meeks, et al, which challenged the Virginia Dept. of Transportation's (VDOT) right to use tolls to fund a $2.1-billion project that would build a new tube parallel to the 50-year-old, 4,300-ft-long Midtown Tunnel. The court ruled that allowing VDOT to set toll rates on the
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
Photos Courtesy of Parsons Corp. Unbraced tied-arch structure was built off-site, then rolled and floated to its final destination over the Mississippi River. Related Links: Builders Say Precast Concrete Network Arch Bridge Is A First Massive Railroad Truss Rolls Into Place A new iconic crossing for Hastings, Minn., is nearing completion. The job used self-propelled modal transporters, barges, skid tracks and strand jacks to set what officials say is North America's longest free-standing, unbraced tied-arch bridge structure.The structure was not even in the original plans to replace the two-lane continuous steel-arch truss over the Mississippi River. The Minnesota Dept. of
Image Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects Global firms will manage billions in construction for ambitious Saudi metro program. Related Links: Saudi Arabia Upgrading Passenger Rail And Freight Service Global Teams Win Massive Contracts For Saudi Subway Lines Several global consulting firms have won plum contracts for a six-line, 131-station, 106-mile-long mass- transit system for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.Riyadh Metro Transit Consultants, a joint venture of Parsons Corp., Egis and Systra, won a $556-million contract to manage the first two packages— including lines Nos. 1, 2 and 3 and totaling 104 kilometers—for the ArRiyadh Development Authority. The team will oversee construction of
Photo Courtesy of John Hillman A West Virginia bridge received HCB beams that only weighed 10 tons each. Related Links: First Composite Rail Bridge Undergoes Successful Testing Award of Excellence Winner 2010 John Hillman Five years after a fully loaded locomotive and 26 coal cars chugged over a 30-ft-long, 17-ft-wide span comprising eight hybrid composite beams (HCB) in Colorado, the technology has been used in nine states.An HCB consists of a glass-fiber-reinforced plastic shell with high-strength continuous steel fibers placed along the bottom flange and filled with self-consolidating concrete (ENR 4/12/10 p. 34). Like the Bridge-in-a-Backpack (BIAB)—another non-traditional construction technology
Photo courtesy of Toronto Transit Commission Seven months after almost simultaneously completing one tunneling segment, twin TBMs break through headwalls within a day of each other in mid-June. Related Links: Spanish Firms Will Help Build Toronto Subway Extension Toronto Subway Wins Some Funds Yorkie beat Torkie, but only by a day. After 945 meters of digging southward, the first 6.4-m-dia tunnel-boring machine broke through the headwall of the extraction shaft at what will be Black Creek Pioneer Village Station on June 13. The next day, its twin TBM, nicknamed Torkie, followed. The earth-pressure-balance TBMs did not match the unusual feat