The often-turbulent journey of Miami International Airport’s $6.2-billion capital improvement program is currently flying smoothly, yet officials also are braced for what they say is the most challenging construction period of all. “This is the decisive year,” says Jim Eldridge, construction manager for the joint venture of Odebrecht Construction, Inc., Coral Gables, Fla., and Parsons Transportation Group, Pasadena, Calif. “It’s like playing the Super Bowl every day for six months.” Photo: Andres Romero/ Parsons Odebrecht J.V. More than 800 construction workers a day are currently working on Miami’s expanding north terminal. Photo: Andres Romero/ Parsons Odebrecht J.V. The joint venture

The Interior Dept. is maintaining its aggressive pace in committing economic-stimulus funds for construction and maintenance projects around the country. Interior’s National Park Service on April 22 released a $750-million list of projects to be funded under the stimulus measure, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The roster contains 766 projects, including work on a wide range of buildings, monuments, trails and water and sewer lines. Plan includes $30.5 million for repairs to the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar followed up the park news on April 25 by rolling out the $500-million stimulus plan for the Bureau

Scheduled water deliveries from the Colorado River will be short 60% to 90% of the time by mid-century if human-caused climate change continues to reduce precipitation in the basin, say state researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. “The situation is horrible,” says Tim Barnett, Scripps research marine physicist. “We’re using all the water that is there, and there is going to be less of it.” Coincidentally, on May 15, scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colo., will publish a report with similar findings from a study of major rivers

It may be old hat in Europe and Asia to rocket through the landscape on a 200-plus-mile-an-hour train. But in America, all that promoters of high-speed passenger rail service have to show for three decades of effort are dusty feasibility studies stretching from Florida to California. Photo: California High Speed Rail Authority Simulation of high-speed trains in California. Yet by committing $13 billion in stimulus and budget funds to high-speed train travel to reduce traffic congestion and cut pollution, the Obama Administration is giving these projects a critical boost. A priority is a line that would whiz passengers 520 miles

Long-awaited link across the bay will ease traffic and create a signature gateway to Mumbai PHOTO BY JANICE L. TUCHMAN FOR ENR ? Inclined. Two four-legged pylons lean together, creating a formwork challenge. div id="articleExtrasA" PHOTOS LEFT COURTESY OF HCC; PHOTO RIGHT BY JANICE L. TUCHMAN FOR ENR ? Tower Head. Anchorage boxes were fabricated on-site to close tolerances and assembled in sections, with care for the exit angle of the guide pipes for the stay cables. div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" By Janice L. Tuchman in Mumbai with Neelam Mathews After years of legal delays, monsoons, heavy lifting and a

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar D-Minn.) says he plans to unveil a new multi-year surface transportation bill in "a couple of weeks" and adds that it will move to the House floor during the first week of June. Oberstar, who discussed the legislation at an Apr. 24 press conference, declined to disclose the price tag for the measure, which his panel's staff is now drafting. But highway and transit groups released a report that says annual capital spending by all levels of government must more than double to meet projected needs. The report, issued Apr. 24 by

Continuing the rollout of federal agencies’ economic-stimulus plans, the Interior Dept.’s National Park Service has released its $750-million list of projects to be funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The list, published on April 22, totals 766 projects, including work on buildings, monuments, trails and water and sewer lines. Photo: National Park Service Jefferson Memorial Related Links: State-by-state park service stimulus projects and funding allotments California receives the largest allocation, $97.4 million for 97 projects, including $16.1 million for work on trails, buildings and water lines in Golden Gate National Park in San Francisco. The District of Columbia

After years of legal delays, monsoons, heavy lifting and a lot of fancy formwork, the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, a 4.7- kilometer viaduct with two cable-stayed spans, made its final connection on April 20 and is slated to open to traffic in mid-May. When it does, the bypass over the sea will cut the time of a trip across Mahim Bay in Mumbai, India, from about 40 minutes to just six. Slide Show Photo: Janice L. Tuchman / ENR Two four-legged pylons lean together, creating a formwork challenge. Drivers who had to suffer through 23 traffic lights to make the trip

Drawing on $8 billion from the federal economic stimulus, the Obama administration has laid out a blueprint for developing high-speed rail in 100- to 600-mile-long corridors around the country. The plan, which the U.S. Dept. of Transportation unveiled April 16, does not say which projects will be funded. DOT will start awarding the first round of grants for ready-to-go upgrades to existing routes by late summer. A second phase would have a longer-range focus. However, carrying out the plan’s lofty aims will require much more than $8 billion. It is uncertain where that new money will come from. + Image

The amount of federal economic-stimulus work continues to grow, with the April 15 announcements that the Interior Dept.’s Bureau of Reclamation has committed $1 billion to projects throughout the West and that the Environmental Protection Agency is dividing $600 million among Superfund projects at 50 sites. Photo: Bureau of Reclamation Red Bluff Diversion Dam to get pumping plant. BuRec included about 30 large projects and an unspecified number of smaller ones that it plans to finance through the stimulus, the title of which is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). California will receive the largest share at $260 million.