The head of Washington, D.C.’s beleaguered Metrorail system recently told Congress his agency “had to move and move quickly” in launching an accelerated infrastructure maintenance program in 2016, despite lacking a budget or management plan to guide what could be a $118-million effort to restore the 118-mile system.
In the wake of the unexpected election of Donald Trump as president, the surge in market optimism among construction executives in the fourth quarter of 2016 has taken on an even greater intensity in the first quarter of 2017.
After a final, Feb. 28-March 6 maintenance stop, the world’s largest-diameter tunnel-boring machine has moved less than two blocks away from the disassembly pit in Seattle. TBM “Bertha,” churning a 1.7- mile-long tunnel for a state Route 99 replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct, required a stop less than 1,000 ft from the pit to confirm that the 57.5-ft-dia machine was 6 in. off course alignment.
Costs for Kinder Morgan Inc.’s 715-mile-long Trans Mountain oil-pipeline expansion in Alberta and British Columbia have risen to $5.48 billion from $5 billion since 2014, when the project was announced, company officials said on March 9.
Crews completed a permanent splice on the fractured Delaware River Bridge, which links Pennsylvania and New Jersey, one month early, allowing I-276 traffic to resume on March 9 for the first time since Jan. 20, when the crack was found on the 1.25-mile-long symmetrical truss bridge.
Oklahoma transportation officials will seek private-sector assistance to close the last gap in the Gilcrease Expressway, a highway that loops around downtown Tulsa.