Transport Scotland expects to have bids for the estimated $2-billion cable-stayed bridge over the Firth of Forth waterway in hand by the end of January. The agency aims to award by April the 66-month, lump-sum design-build contract for the Forth Replacement Waterway Project. Photo: Transport Scotland The new Forth Replacement Waterway Project, when complete in 2016, will be the third major crossing over the Firth of Forth, near Edinburgh. Shown: The Forth Road Bridge, completed in the mid-1960s. Two teams of contractors were invited to bid for the fixed-price contract on Dec. 17, say Transport Scotland officials. Nearly 40 companies
A consortium led by Beijing-based China Communications Construction Co. has won the contract to design and build the world’s longest sunken-tube tunnel for road traffic between Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao. The project has a tight time frame, with design expected to be completed by June 2012 and construction slated to be finished by the end of 2016. Photo: Courtesy Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Authority At 4.2 miles, a sunken-tube tunnel in Hong Kong will be the world’s longest. The winning project team includes the local offices of AECOM Asia Co. Ltd., Shanghai Urban Construction (Group) Co., China Highway Planning and
Photo: Nick Merrick/Hedrich Blessing The latest addition to the Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) opened on Jan. 24 sporting a unique look that uses laminated Douglas-fir trusses. The project’s designer, Denver-based Fentress Architects, claims RDU is the first major airport in the world to use a “lenticular wood-truss structure” to support a roof. In all, 80 trusses span the entire length of the terminal and concourse at 30 ft intervals. The trusses are 90 ft long and weigh 34 tons each. The latest phase of the terminal’s construction adds 920,000 sq ft to the 550,000 sq ft that opened in 2008,
Union Pacific Railroad, the largest rail network in the U.S., is expected to break ground later this year on a new transportation hub that will expand its existing operations in the Southwest. The $400-million project will be constructed in Santa Teresa, N.M., not far from the Omaha-based rail company’s existing El Paso, Texas, facility. Originally proposed in 2006, the project has been on hold in part because the railroad was waiting for the New Mexico Legislature to pass a locomotive fuel tax exemption. At a press conference in Santa Teresa on Jan. 8, newly elected Gov. Susana Martinez (R) said
The 112th Congress has not begun well at all for highway construction advocates. Infographic By Walter Konefal New House rule would open the door for highway and transit cuts below the amounts SAFETEA-LU authorized. On Jan. 5, the first day the new Congress was in session, the House, now under Republican control, approved a procedural rule that breaches a 13-year-old legislative “firewall” and lets House appropriators cut highway and transit spending below sums authorized in 2005’s Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users. “We are very distressed,” says Pam Whitted, vice president for government affairs for
Pittsburgh’s $528-million North Shore Connector project is now nearing completion on schedule, despite a month-long jam of a tunnel-boring machine in 2008. The Port Authority of Allegheny County says there are no claims or liquidated damages. Photo: Courtesy of Port Authority of Allegheny County New expanded light-rail station features preserved mural. The 1.2-mile extension of the city’s 25-mile light-rail system extends from downtown beneath the Allegheny River to the city’s North Side. The work involved three major components: construction of the twin-bore tunnels, reconfiguration of the existing Gateway Station and a new North Side station. In April 2008, the 500-ton
Ayear after shifting bridge bents halted work on the $217-million U.S. Route 20 project near Oregon’s coast, engineers are hoping for rain and a solution. Photo: Courtesy of ODOT Unstable soils have kept completion of an Oregon road section in limbo. While over 50% of the new 6.5-mile bypass is complete, four bridges up to 1,100 ft long sit partially constructed. Lateral load from adjacent fill and subsurface ground pressure may have caused two of the 20 bents on the 10-bridge project to shift as much as two inches. Since that discovery in February 2010, crews have been collecting data.
It will be late summer before drivers cross the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere, yet for Frank Daams, the new bridge essentially was complete in early January when crews installed the last two 830-ft-long cables and stressed each of their 44 steel strands. “As far as I’m concerned, it is finished,” says Daams, project manager for Audubon Bridge Constructors, a joint venture of Flatiron Constructors Inc., Longmont, Colo.; Granite Construction, Watsonville, Calif., and Parsons Transportation Group Inc., Washington, D.C. “Now all we have are little details to get it open to traffic.” The John James Audubon Bridge crossing
Tucson, Ariz., secured federal funding for an ambitious project to build an electrically powered streetcar with the approval of a $63-million grant through the Federal Transit Administration. Officials with the city’s transportation department finalized the paperwork for the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) funds on Dec. 28. The move protects the project’s funding from congressional stimulus cuts, they say. The city now must find a way to close the $26-million funding gap for the project. The city must close a $26-million funding gap. Tucson also is awaiting FTA’s approval of an environmental assessment, required before grant funds can be
Canada's National Energy Board granted approval in December to the proposed Mackenzie Gas Project, which would string a natural gas pipeline from the upper-reaches of the Northwest Territories, Canada, 745 miles south into Northern Alberta. Before the $16.2-billion project can proceed, backers must put in place a funding framework. Image: Walter Konefal for ENR "Mackenzie needs to compete on a supply-cost basis with other sources of supply," says Pius Rolheiser, Calgary-based Mackenzie project spokesperson." It remains the critical challenge today to be cost- competitive with shale gas, liquefied natural gas and potential Alaska projects." While Mackenzie runs primarily south, staying
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