The California Dept. of Transportation is nearing completion of a $5-million experimental project using a plate-pile system to stabilize almost 2 miles of embankment at an interchange near Colusa, Calif. Caltrans officials say the method may shave $3 million off the cost of a conventional method. Caltrans is using a proprietary system in which steel plates are affixed to poles, or piles, and inserted into stable strata underlying loose soil, transmitting the slide forces downward to the stiffer material. The technique has been used on several municipal projects but is a first for Caltrans, says Richard Short, founder and president
The Israeli government will proceed with detailed planning for a new $410-million international airport at Timna. The terminal will serve Eilat, the southern Red Sea port and a major tourist destination. The Transport Ministry will seek proposals in September for a detailed design plan. The new airport is expected to be funded through the sale of the existing facility that it is replacing. That sale will be used to develop new hotels and tourist facilities for the Eilat resort area.
Photo: Courtesy Missouri Dept. Of Transportation Missouri DOT Searches for Reasons Behind Ramp Collapse Missouri’s Dept. of Transportation and engineering consultant HNTB are investigating why a section of interstate highway ramp in southern Kansas City collapsed on July 17. The earth beneath a ramp that connects I-470 with I-435 gave way, collapsing part of a 42-ft-high retaining wall and creating a 35-ft-wide, 200-ft-long hole in the pavement. The highway serves some 35,000 vehicles per day. MoDOT engineer Jesse Skinner says MoDOT and HNTB are analyzing geologic data to see whether the failure occurred in the soil or underlying shale. The
Ahighway improvement project that runs through a national park is serving as a test case for formalizing a road rating system similar to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design building rating system. Photo: DEA A road improvement project may be the first to be officially rated “green.” The 3.8-mile, $16-million U.S. 97 Lava Butte-South Century Drive upgrade in central Oregon runs through the Newberry National Monument. It is the furthest along of three projects the Oregon Dept. of Transportation will evaluate to determine if it will adopt standards set by Greenroads, unveiled by the University of Washington and CH2M
After scaling back its expansion plans in the face of spiraling construction costs, Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport, referred to as SJC, is putting the finishing touches on a three-year, $1.3-billion design-build construction program that demonstrates how less really can be more. Photo: SJC California airport employed design-build to scale back costs on massive expansion. The program’s centerpiece—the sleek new 127,000-sq-ft metal-and-glass-paneled Terminal B—began full operation on June 30 as well as a 1.6 million-sq-ft, seven-level precast consolidated rental car and public parking garage, which is known by the acronym ConRAC. Last fall, SJC completed the modernization of
Florida Dept. of Transportation officials and their advisers aren’t likely to forget the year 2008. FDOT was trying to close on two different billion-dollar-plus public-private partnerships, but the financial markets were collapsing. In September, while still restructuring the year-delayed Port of Miami Tunnel (POMT) deal, FDOT accepted bids for a $2-billion Interstate 595 expansion. Just days later, emblematic of market conditions, the financial giant Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. “Credit was just not obtainable,” recalls Jeff Parker, founder of Jeffrey A. Parker & Associates Inc., Chilmark, Mass., a financial adviser to FDOT. “The bid assumed $900 million in private activity
Causes and solutions are proving elusive on an Oregon bridge project in which two bents moved out of plumb during construction. Last winter, the trouble was noticed on the $215-million U.S. 20 Pioneer Mountain-Eddyville highway near the Oregon coast. Joe Squire, project manager for the Oregon Dept. of Transportation, says a lateral load from adjacent fill and subsurface ground pressure may have caused the shifts in two of the 20 bents on the 10-bridge project. The project consists of a six-and-a-half mile section of new road that bypasses a 10-mile stretch of substandard highway. Six of the 10 bridges are
The Washington State Dept. of Transportation describes the highway off-ramp improperly built on a new interchange in east Tacoma as “unfortunate and embarrassing.” It’s also expensive. A change order for nearly $900,000 —out of the project’s contingency fund at the cost of WSDOT—was worked out with project contractor Guy F. Atkinson Construction. The Broomfield, Colo.-based contractor already has started removing retaining-wall panels to flatten the ramp, which was mistakenly built at the wrong grade. Photo: WSDOT Demolition begins for the fix to a wrongly placed Tacoma, Wash., interchange ramp. The eastbound ramp of the $119.9-million Nalley Valley interchange—at which Interstate
How do you pack the construction of four new 14-mile- long lanes, 58 new bridges and 900,000 sq ft of retaining wall into an active highway carrying 200,000 daily vehicles and do it in four years? Virginia’s Capital Beltway expansion team would answer: Pack all the players into one room—early and often. Then, as Virginia Dept. of Transportation senior project manager Larry Cloyed says, the team has to live by the motto “Get it done.” The $1.35-billion reconstruction of the Capital Beltway—including the addition of two high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes in each direction—is being performed by a private concessionaire that
Causes and solutions prove elusive on an Oregon bridge project where two bents moved out of plumb during construction. The troubled was noticed in the winter on the $215 million U.S. 20: Pioneer Mountain-Eddyville highway near the Oregon coast. Joe Squire, project manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation, says that a lateral load from adjacent fill and sub-surface ground pressure may have caused the shifts in two of the 20 bents on the 10-bridge project. The project consists of a six-and-a-half mile section of new road that bypasses a 10-mile stretch of substandard highway. Six of the 10 bridges
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