Photo Courtesy of Illinois Tollway A $12-billion, 15-year construction program aims to ramp up economic development in the regions around O'Hare airport. Related Links: Illinois Highway Builders Keep Massive Job On Track Success of Illinois Extension Overcomes Difficult Past In a video shot by the Illinois Road and Transportation Builders Association, a construction worker named Robert Hall gives a testimonial for IRTBA: "It gives us a lot of work, especially when our economy was bad," the Geneva Construction Co. employee says. "IRTBA allowed us to go get more work … gave us an opportunity to keep on rolling when the
Photo courtesy New York State Thruway Authority Under presidential designation, new Tappan Zee Bridge project received expedited, collaborative permitting with high-level federal and state agency representatives meeting weekly. Related Links: Support for Environmental Review Reforms Gains Momentum Streamlining Smoothes Progress on Maryland Highway Project New California Streamlining Law Gets Mixed Reviews New York State's New Design-Build Law a Sign of the Times? Fourteen years ago, the New York State Thruway Authority proposed a plan to replace the then-44-year-old Tappan Zee Bridge, a 6,014-ft-long, seven-lane crossing carrying Interstates 87 and 287 over the Hudson River. That proposal followed decades of Band-Aid
Related Links: Airports Emphasize Flexibility In New Designs DOTs Are Gaining "Complete Streets" Smarts P3 Experts Point to the Canadian Experience Infrastructure Investors Are Willing To Pound The Pavement Viewpoint by John D. Porcari: Project Environmental Reviews, Undo the Do-Over Loop Harvey Hammond, chairman of HNTB Corp., was talking about the firm's future as it marks its 100th anniversary this year—as well as the future of funding improvements to the nation's bridges, railways, ports, tunnels and major highways. "The infrastructure needs and demands will always be there," he says. "The question is: How do we respond to [them]?"For U.S. states
Image Courtesy of SFO SFO's planned airport improvements will be informed by a recently revised set of life-cycle recommendations. Image Courtesy of SFO Related Links: Transportation's Next Chapter: Maintenance, Mobility, Money DOTs Are Gaining "Complete Streets" Smarts Dont Leave It at LEED, Say Aviation Project Leaders Airports Push The Green Envelope Airport Improvements Squeeze Into San Diego Surface transportation designers and builders are adopting a more system-based, holistic approach to infrastructure that emphasizes sustainability and place-making, not merely mobility. And so are airports.For years now, airport leaders have agreed that meeting LEED standards is a start but not enough for
Image Courtesy GDOT Related Links: Transportation's Next Chapter: Maintenance, Mobility, Money Airports Emphasize Flexibility In New Designs GDOT's Complete Streets Manual The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) would like to see transportation-design policy start at the city and state levels, not the federal level. With that in mind, the Washington State Dept. of Transportation is adopting the group's new "Urban Street Design Guide."The guide includes a chapter on interim design strategies before a major buildup; a discussion of design controls; showing the street as a physical place; and real-life examples of the impacts of design decisions on that
Related Links: Q&A: 10 Minutes With DOT's Ray LaHood Call To Upgrade Infrastructure Transportation policy leaders agree that infrastructure funding is a bipartisan issue, but consensus on raising the federal gas tax remains elusive.Former U.S. Dept. of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, addressing a Feb. 4 forum in Washington, D.C., said, "We should have raised the gas tax already and index it to inflation. I would've raised it by 10¢," he said to applause.But a fellow panelist on the Bloomberg Government-hosted discussion of U.S. infrastructure investment, Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said it was
Related Links: NAPA Website Asphalt Producers Warm To New Mix Technologies Warm-mix asphalt (WMA) and recycled materials in asphalt (RAP) are the hot ticket on road projects, according to results of a survey by the National Asphalt Pavement Association under contract to the Federal Highway Administration. A survey of 1,141 U.S. asphalt plants found that they produced about 86.7 million tons of WMA during 2012 construction—almost a quarter of all asphalt mixes. This marks a 416% increase since a 2009 survey.Conducted in mid-2013 and released on Jan. 29, the study also found that about 68.3 million tons of RAP and
When K.N. Murthy took the helm at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), his task was twofold: transform the workings of an auto-centric city and of an agency that serves a population of 9.6 million.
Ask Bala Sivakumar about his nearly 30 years in bridge engineering, and he dutifully recites biographical information. But ask him about the need for accelerated bridge construction (ABC), and, suddenly, there's excitement and passion in his voice.
