Map by Shem Oirere/ENR Art Department Planned North Road across Tanzania includes a 53-km section cutting through Serengeti National Park. Related Links: Serengeti Road Project Halted for Wildlife Study Tanzania has altered its design for a new 53-kilometer-long highway through the world-famous Serengeti National Park in response to international concerns raised over the project’s impact on the UN world heritage site.Plans for paving the stretch have been dropped. The country’s minister of tourism and natural resources says the road section will be graveled to reduce harm to the more than two million wildebeests that use the section as their annual
A congressional battle that blocked passage of a new stopgap Federal Aviation Administration bill has caused the FAA to issue stop-work orders on about 80 airport engineering and construction contracts, totaling more than $790 million, around the country.The failure to pass a new authorization bill before the old one expired on July 22 has also tied up an additional $2.5 billion in infrastructure funds, as FAA put a hold on awarding new grants from its Airport Improvement Program (AIP). Moreover, the agency furloughed about 4,000 of its 47,000 workers.The closing of the AIP grant window is a bigger problem for
Mass. Department of Transportation crews have completed installation of high-strength support straps on approximately 25,000 tunnel light fixtures in the Boston Big Dig Central Artery tunnels as a safety measure.The system was developed as a temporary three-to-five-year solution to the tunnel light corrosion issues while engineers evaluate options for a long-term solution, the agency noted in a July 25 press release..Paul Norton, principal at TranSystems in Boston, which served as transportation consultant for Mass DOT, says the high-strength polymer support strapping wraps around the entire lighting fixture and engages the steel Unistrut structure. “We studied 10 alternatives based on cost,
At a time when cutbacks threaten surface transportation programs across the U.S., a new economic analysis from the American Society of Civil Engineers says that simply maintaining current levels of investment won't be enough to avert long-term losses in productivity, jobs and household income.Drawing on widely used transportation planning models and consumer and industry data, “Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Surface Transportation,” forecasts that, within the next decade, the added costs of dealing with deteriorating highways, bridges and transit systems will result in the loss of more than 870,000 jobs and cut the nation's
BridgesThe North Carolina Dept. of Transportation is proceeding with a complex replacement of the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge on the Outer Banks, despite a new lawsuit that claims the project violates the National Environmental Policy Act.PCL Civil Constructors Inc. and HDR Engineering Inc. of the Carolinas submitted the apparent winning bid of $215,777,000 for the design-build project that NCDOT estimated would cost approximately $241.6 million.Replacing the deteriorating 2.7-mile, 260-span prestressed-concrete girder structure across Oregon Inlet has long been a top priority. It is the only highway link to Hatteras Island, one of the state's most popular tourist destinations and home
Workers on the Humpback Bridge replacement, located on the George Washington Memorial Parkway just north of Interstate 395 and immediately south of the Columbia Island Marina, are closing in on the final round of safety improvements. In the process, they are preserving the grace of the bridge's original stone arch structure, says Chris Scott, a general manager for Cianbro, Pittsfield, Maine, the construction firm working on the job. Courtesy of Cianbro OLD BRIDGE, NEW IMPROVEMENTS Workers are slated to complete the bridge improvements by the end of this month. Workers on the Humpback Bridge replacement, located on the George Washington
Amid intense media attention, a design-build team on July 16 closed one of the most congested highway stretches in the country, demolished half an iconic bridge and reopened the 10-mile stretch to traffic 17 hours ahead of schedule—and earned a $300,000 bonus. Photo courtesy of L.A. Metro MIGHTY MULHOLLAND PARTIALLY FALLS Crews chipped away at the southern half of a historic bridge as part of a $1-billion freeway widening. The $1-billion Sepulveda Pass widening will add high-occupancy vehicle lanes to a stretch of Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. The last of three bridges to be demolished and rebuilt, the Mulholland
The widening of I-405 marks one of the few major design-build projects in Los Angeles to date. But thanks to an ambitious initiative to build 12 major transit projects by 2019, rather than over three decades, alternative project delivery methods are expected to be deployed on some of the county's biggest rail and highway projects.One of the highway projects that might benefit is the decades-old Interstate I-710 completion. “This project has the most promising P3 potential,” said Doug Failing, executive director of highway programs for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or L.A. Metro. His remarks came during a May
RSS
