Related Links: Quick Flood Repairs Earn Contractors a Bonus The Missouri River flooding closed railroads as well as highways last summer, but U.S. railroad companies stayed a step ahead of the floodwaters, building levees and elevating tracks to keep their trains running.Norfolk Southern Railway and Union Pacific Railroad raised track in Kansas and Missouri major floods within the past two decades, but the 2011 flood was so severe that they were again forced to elevate roadbeds.“Due to major roadbed work after the 1993 flood and additional work after the 2007 flood our track did not require any additional raising,” said
The critics have called it "the bridge to nowhere." It has gone through over a decade of delays and setbacks. But the 1,722-ft-long, 295-ft-tall Galena Creek Bridge, one of the costliest, most controversial projects in Nevada's history, is finally nearing completion.Crossing a small creek in a rocky, rural patch of northern Nevada about 20 miles southwest of Reno, it will be both the country's longest cathedral-arch bridge and the linchpin of a $600-million Interstate 580 extension between Reno and Carson City.The 8.5-mile-long, six-lane freeway bypasses a busy, accident-prone stretch of U.S. Highway 395—which runs through Pleasant Valley, a small, unincorporated
Courtesy of Capital Beltway Express LLC Virginia's $2.1-billion Capitol Beltway Express is near its midway point. Public-private partnerships are gaining an extra boost in the United States as cash-strapped states increasingly grapple with how to address critical public-works infrastructure needs amid dwindling public funds. And the U.S. could learn a thing or two about P3 deals from its northern neighbor.That's the consensus of construction professionals with mature experience in P3 delivery systems who gathered at a recent related conference in Washington, D.C. Canada is widely seen as a decade ahead of the U.S. in P3 delivery of major highway and
PHOTO COURTESY OF GO BUILD ALABAMA Go National Alabamas image initiative, supported by CURT, is nearing adoption in two more states. What's top of mind for one of the biggest construction project owners in the U.S.? Attendees at the Construction Users Roundtable national conference, held in Chandler, Ariz., on Nov. 7-9, got insight into Intel's strategy to execute $3.5 billion worth of construction in 2011.Tim G. Hendry, Intel's procurement and fabrication vice president, said the challenge for the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer is to keep its four-year lead over competitors. "With speed comes challenges," he said. Intel is experiencing "steeper,
Why are industry best practices underused, and how can associations collaborate to increase their implementation?A web-based framework should be developed in which groups can share best practices as well as promote opportunities to improve, suggests the National Construction Forum, a group of 15 associations and eight universities, convened by the National Academy of Construction in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 16-17.The forum's goal is to create a national voice on major industry issues by integrating and leveraging the efforts of key organizations."The idea is to start small but to grow to include every industry organization," said James G. Slaughter, president of
MAP COURTESY OF SONOMA-MARIN AREA RAIL TRANSIT North of San Francisco, the North Bay's first commuter rail line is inching toward construction. Meandering through the hilly suburbs of Marin County and the farms and vineyards of Sonoma County, the new rail line is designed to relieve pressure from the jam-packed 101 Freeway, providing a less stressful ride for North Bay commuters. As the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit system moves ahead, other California rail projects—such as the $100-billion San Francisco-toAnaheim high-speed rail line—are hitting some speed bumps.Seed MoneyLast month, the Bay Area's Metropolitan Transportation Commission released $33.1 million to the Sonoma-Marin
As London’s main international airport at Heathrow nears full capacity, momentum is growing in the U.K. for a major new hub in the Thames Estuary. London Mayor Boris Johnson has been lobbying hard for an estuary airport for two years. Recently, architectural heavyweight Sir Norman Foster proposed a rival $80-billion estuary project that includes high-speed rail, tidal power and a major new utilities and data spine.Foster’s Thames Hub would be built at the end of the Isle of Grain, Kent, some 55 kilometers east of central London. Over a third of the 40,000-hectare airport would be on land reclaimed, with
NTA The first of seven lines will be 23 kilometers long and have 22 stations. NTA Set for completion in 2017, project construction is estimated to cost $2.5 billion. With about 400,000 residents and more than 3.3 million in its metropolitan area, Israel's second-largest city, Tel Aviv, is finally getting a mass transit system. After decades of false starts, work has begun on the first of seven planned lines of a combined light-rail and bus rapid-transit network. Estimated at $2.5 billion, it is the most expensive civilian transport project ever undertaken in Israel.The launch comes a year after the cancellation
City of Bellingham Crushed toilets are added to concrete mix in Bellingham, Wash. Contractors bidding on projects for the City of Bellingham, Wash., have the option of adding a new element to concrete mixes—toilets.The city wants recycled aggregate in concrete flatwork projects to catch on, so much so that engineers have experimented with using crushed toilets in a new “poticrete” mix. They unveiled the first stretch of sidewalk sporting poticrete in late September.Freeman Anthony, Bellingham city engineer, says he was working on upping recycled products in city concrete specs when a local nonprofit that does green building called and asked
Related Links: Blog: The Tappan Zee Bridge and Wind Energy Center? The environmental impact statement for a new Hudson River crossing north of New York City is still in draft, but it will not include an expected mass transit component. With work on replacement spans for the Tappan Zee Bridge expected to begin as early as next fall, state officials say that they had to limit the current project's scope.A plan to replace the deteriorating bridge has been debated for years. Carrying the New York State Thruway over the Hudson River north of New York City, the 56-year-old cantilever bridge
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