Corridor work began in February 2010. “The delivery method allows us to need so many people [at once], because there is such an incentive on schedule,” says Phil Schwab, vice president with RS&H. Currently, there are more than 1,250 workers on site.

Corradino Group, which is providing construction and operations management to FDOT, completes audits to provide statistically valid proof that the work meets performance requirements, says Ed Perez, Corradino's senior vice president and project resident engineer.

I-595 Express brought in Dragados USA, New York City, as the design-build contractor. Dragados is self-performing minor bridge work in a joint venture with Baker Concrete Construction on a roughly $30-million contract. Dragados hired AECOM to oversee all design. General contractor GLF Construction Corp. is building 17 bridges near the turnpike interchange on an $85-million contract.

Corridor construction is divided among three firms. Prince Contracting has an $85-million contract for a five-mile section of mainline I-595, S.R. 84 and Nob Hill Road; Bergeron Land Development is leading a $95-million contract for 3.5 miles of work; and Ranger Construction holds one contract of $40 million for the easternmost 2.5 miles of work and another for $38 million for the 2.5 miles of turnpike reconstruction.

Multiple Work Zones

Alvaro Muelas, CEO of I-595 Express, considers the sequencing of work a major challenge. As work progresses through the different areas, traffic is shifted to either the auxiliary lanes or express lanes, allowing crews to work on the braided ramps, lane widening and bridges.

To add the reversible express lanes into the median, workers had to shift the entire corridor to the north and into a canal, which is being partially filled with earth to support the roadway. This required installation of steel sheeting.

I-595 Express developed a traffic control plan that maximizes construction operations during off-peak hours, says Muelas. Throughout the corridor, crews will move 3.6 million cu yd of earth with 2 million cu yd required to fill in lakes, borrow pits and the canal.

Work also includes the addition, modification, widening or removal of 62 highway bridges, including 26 new structures. A joint venture of Dragados-USA and Baker Concrete Services will complete the work on the bridges at the crossroads throughout the corridor.

GLF Construction will perform the work on the category 2, steel bridges. Two flyovers will connect the express lanes in I-595's median to the median of the turnpike. In September, Dragados-Baker completed a 1,100-cu-yd concrete deck pour using two pumps and two screeds. Perez said the contractor had to use two screeds and manually remove the screed rail during the work. One risk is that if one screed moves faster than the other, the concrete may start setting before the pour finishes.

Another flyover requires raising an existing steel box-girder bridge by 18 in. and extending the eastern end to allow the express lanes to pass through. The contractor for this future work will use a computer-controlled hydraulic manifold system to jack the box girders at the piers and then install shoring towers to brace it until it can pour the extension and then lower the load back onto the piers. That contract has yet to be awarded and will not be completed until 2012.