Related Links: Deadly Guardrails on Trial Again in Trinity Whistle-Blower Case Highway Guardrail May Be Deadly, States Say Virginia's transportation department this month followed Missouri, Nevada and Massachusetts in taking off a controversial guardrail end-terminal model from its approved highway-products list. The ET-Plus model, which includes a steel fixture that is meant to absorb a vehicle's impact, is the subject of various lawsuits claiming the fixture has acted, instead, as a deadly spear.In an Oct. 10 letter to a sales manager with Trinity Highway Products LLC, the manufacturer of the ET-Plus, the Virginia Dept. of Transportation requested additional documentation regarding
Related Links: Airports Peg Their Five-Year Capital Needs at $71 Billion Automation, Weather Will Influence Future Airport Designs In terms of NextGen air-traffic-control technology, U.S. airports are ready for takeoff, but the industry is still waiting on the tarmac for progress on a key goal: raising the per-ticket passenger facility charge (PFC) to $8.50 from $4.50, to fund infrastructure projects.Noting that, in the past five years, $5 billion has been invested in NextGen technologies nationwide, Edward Bolton Jr., the Federal Aviation Administration's NextGen assistant administrator, said, "This is a make or break time in the history of the program. The
Related Links: As Hong Kong-Macau Tunnel Progresses, Denmark Floats a Record Breaker Longest Sunken-Tube Tunnel Planned For Contractors and Their Advisers, A Sinking Feeling Is Good in Busan Chinese engineers had never built an immersed tunnel on the open sea, let alone one that, upon completion, would be the world's longest, at a total length of 6.7 kilometers, and one of the deepest, at almost 45 meters, under China's Pearl River Delta.The idea of directly linking the economic powerhouses of Hong Kong and Macau—shortening the three-hour drive to about a half hour—had floated around for almost 20 years. But it's
Photo Courtesy of kcstreetcar.org In Kansas City, streetcar project teams are using PDF collaboration software by Bluebeam and mobile devices to coordinate relocation of utilities' systems. Related Links: iPads and Tech Support: Time Saved Vs. Time Spent Bluebeam, Citrix Tie-Up Extends Desktop Power to Tablet Apps It has been only a couple of years since Kansas Dept. of Transportation (KDOT) engineers began using online storage for plans and project files. Washington state DOT just last year launched a website that publicly displays its projects' status and data. Until recently, the Iowa Dept. of Transportation did not have tools such as
Related Links: Transportation's Next Chapter: Maintenance, Mobility, Money P3s Fuel Construction of Lone Star Lanes Continuing its trend of building managed toll lanes with private-sector partners, the Texas Dept. of Transportation has "conditionally" awarded a team led by Kiewit Corp. an $847-million, 3.5-year design-build contract to expand and upgrade State Highway 183, also known as the Airport Freeway, in Dallas.The award is "not set in stone," says Ryan LaFontaine, a TxDOT spokesperson. "There is a period where we'll go work with them to make sure their promises match what we require. Also, public hearings will be held. The process will
Related Links: Automation, Weather Will Influence Future Airport Designs Frustrated Airport Officials Call Out Feds, Airlines Knoxville's airport rents out land to office complexes, car dealers and the U.S. Postal Service. Huntsville International Airport receives revenue from a golf course and cotton farmers. And several other airports, especially the one in Albuquerque, are seeing increasing savings and tax credits from solar panels.American non-hub airports increasingly are turning to non-aeronautical budget enhancers as they face uncertainty in shaping long-term capital plans. "Non-aeronautical revenue represents a good opportunity for architects, engineers, contractors and investors to participate in the changing aviation environment," says
Courtesy FCC Total diameter of the excavated tunnels was nearly 10 meters. Related Links: Panama Canal Owner and Contractors Agree to Final Cost, Schedule Terms Excavation Under Way on Panama City Metro A design-build team led by Brazilian engineering and construction conglomerate Norberto Odebrecht and the Spanish company Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC) last month completed the 14-kilometer, $1.8-billion Panama Metro light-rail line. The work featured two earth-pressure-balanced tunnel-boring machines, each 9.77 meters in diameter, dubbed "Marta” and "Carolina." The Panama Metro route includes seven kilometers of tunnels and more than five kilometers of elevated guideway. The metro will
The port city of Da Nang not only hosts a key link to the developing eastern regions of Vietnam, world-renowned beach resorts and the route to the UNESCO heritage town of Hoi An, it now has become a tourist attraction and source of economic development in its own right, thanks to the—literally—fire-breathing Dragon Bridge.
Photo by David Sailors NJDOT decided to shut down northbound lanes completely so the contractor can go in and replace the 3.5-mile deck within two years as part of a 10-year, $1-billion rehabilitation program. Related Links: Rival Bidder on New Jersey Highway Rehab Eyes Winner's China Tie | N.J. Gov. Christie Details Decision on ARC Tunnel Project Contractor crews bolted from the starting gate in mid-April, commencing a two-year marathon effort to replace three miles' worth of the Pulaski Skyway northbound deck. About a month after the lanes were completely closed, on April 12, project officials say "Autogeddon" has been
Photo Courtesy of Missouri DOT Pennsylvania's Rapid Bridge Replacement Project follows on the heels of Missouri's recent rapid replacement of 802 bridges. Related Links: Bridge Industry Conference Showcases Missouri Innovations $2.6-Billion Ohio River Bridges Project Ramps Up In Louisville Informed by recent public-private partnerships (P3) and accelerated bridge construction (ABC) programs in other states, Pennsylvania is well under way with the process of combining the two concepts into its plan for addressing 614 structurally deficient bridges.The Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation (PennDOT) late last month asked four teams to submit proposals for its Rapid Bridge Replacement Project. In a release, PennDOT
