An international consortium has won the $1.45-billion contract to construct the first metro train line for Panama City, Panama. The Consorio L�nea Uno consists of Spain’s Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), Brazil’s Odebrecht and France’s Alstom , which will supply the trains for the project. Work is scheduled to start in January. When completed in 2013, the Metro Line 1 will cover a 14-kilometer north-south route across the Panamanian capital, with a 7-km underground stretch. The trains will be powered by a third-rail source using direct current at 750 volts. According to the Panama City Metro Secretariat, the finished
Turkish State Railways’ (Turkiye Cumhuriyeti Devlet Demiryollari, or TCDD) plans to build a 6,000-kilometers network of high-speed track have received a major boost from China. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao signed an agreement in early October in Ankara to loan approximately $28 billion for construction of a 2,000-km high-speed Silk Road Railway. The route will connect Edirne, which is on Turkey’s western border with Bulgaria, and Kars, which is in the northeast near the closed border of Armenia. The Kars–Tbilisi–Baku conventional railway—which links Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan—has been under construction since 2007 and is scheduled for completion by 2012. + Image
Eiffage, France’s third-largest contractor, is building a $315-million toll road in Dakar. Eiffage will have a 30-year concession to build, finance, operate and maintain the 25-kilometer-long road. At present, more than 100,000 vehicles use a double-lane road to enter and exit Dakar on a daily basis, causing severe traffic congestion. The Dakar-Diamniadio toll road is expected to cut the average commute to less than 30 minutes from two hours. Work already has begun on the easternmost segment in the suburb of Diamniadio. But land purchases are still under way in the urban district of Pikine in Dakar. Several thousand families
The California High-Speed Rail Authority approved the first phase of the $43-billion, 800-mile statewide system, giving the go-ahead to a stretch between the small towns of Madera and Corcoran in the Central Valley. The 65-mile-long project will include two stations in downtown Fresno and one at a site east of Hanford, along with a maintenance center located between Merced and Bakersfield. This initial segment will use about $4 billion of the available $4.3 billion to also acquire rights of way, construct viaducts, prepare the site, restore vegetation, build rail bridges, realign roadways and relocate existing railways and utilities. The authority’s
As the Federal Railroad Administration pursues regulations regarding inspection of concrete railroad ties, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority last month launched a $91-million project to replace 147,000 concrete ties that began failing in just 10 years. Photo: Courtesy VHB Thousands of precast concrete ties began to fail in just 10 years. In 1997, the MBTA chose concrete over timber ties because Rocla Concrete Tie Inc., a Denver-based precast-concrete manufacturer, claimed they had a 50-year life span compared to 30 years for timber ties. But in 2007, several thousand ties began cracking and crumbling, disrupting train service on the 61-mile Old
Call it recycling on a whole new level at San Francisco International Airport: The $380-million Terminal 2 project features 99% recycling of construction materials. Airport tenants also need to meet a 10% waste recycling minimum. Rental-car drivers will get discounts for using hybrids. Even the landscaping is an exercise in sustainable approaches to harboring protected species. “We use goats,” says Sam Mehta, environmental services manager for SFO. “It is 100% sustainable. The grass is eaten and fertilized. For them, it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet, and they don’t harm the California red lake frog and San Francisco garter snake. The cut grass
Related Links: Second big lift on Huey P. Long Bridge A 2,648-ton truss was lifted 135 ft and attached to the Huey P. Long Bridge over the Mississippi River in New Orleans over 40 hours on Nov. 20-21. The lift of the 503-ft bridge segment, the second in a three-part series, is part of the $452.6-million superstructure erection portion of the $1.2-billion span widening. MTI—a joint venture of Massman Construction Co., Kansas City; Traylor Bros. Inc., Evansville, Ind.; Kansas City-based design firm HNTB and IHI Inc., a New York City-based unit of a Japanese industrial firm—completed the lift and opened
Concrete crashed onto a Washington, D.C., train station platform during the evening rush hour Nov. 17, but no one was injured. Investigators are checking why the chunks of concrete fell from the ceiling of the Farragut North Metro station in downtown Washington, D.C., an underground Metrorail station. The largest chunk was the “size of a human head,” says a Washington, D.C,. fire department spokesperson. The concrete fell approximately 25 ft to the platform, creating a debris field that was 20 ft across, he said. No one was injured. Investigators are homing in on the possibility that construction crews doing roadwork
The anticipated Nov. 30 opening of Israel’s longest tunnel marks the end of four years of construction and more than a decade of controversy. But completion of the 6.5-kilometer-long Carmel Tunnels, a $300-million build-operate-transfer highway project, will vastly improve traffic flow in the port city of Haifa and is the first major project in Israel for a Chinese contractor. Photo: Courtesy Of Carmelton Group Ltd. Photo: Courtesy Of Carmelton Group Ltd. Carmel Tunnels near Haifa during early construction will speed traffic flow in Israel’s third-largest city and was the country’s first major infrastructure collaboration with China. The project, involving major
Owner Brookfield Properties says the worst of several leaks during construction of a tunnel—under Route 9A linking the World Financial Center and the future World Trade Center development—is well under control and the site is secure. The Nov. 4 leak, 30 ft below existing grade in a section under Brookfield’s WFC, itself built on a relieving platform over the Hudson River, was a “minor issue,” says a spokesman for Brookfield. The tunnel’s contractor, Turner Construction Co., referred inquiries to the the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. The Port Authority attributes the leak, which flooded part of the
RSS
