A joint venture of Archer Western Contractors Ltd., Atlanta, and Watsonville, Calif.-based Granite Construction Co. was awarded a $179-million contract by the North Carolina Turnpike Authority for a major portion of the Western Wake Freeway in North Carolina. The contract covers 40% of the 12.6-mile-long project. The Archer-Granite segment includes construction of 34 bridges, noise and retaining walls and drainage systems. Financing for the project will be provided by a combination of toll revenue bonds, state appropriation bonds and a federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan.
Call it a sidewalk shed or bridge: pedestrian protection by any name is viewed as a Big Apple eyesore to many, including local building officials and the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Through a design competition, they are trying to improve the covers, which they say number 6,000 and add up to more than 1 million linear ft of unsightliness. Photo: Sawyer / ENR There are more than 6,000 sidewalk sheds in New York City that many consider ugly. Photo: Sawyer / ENR Competition may boost protection. On Aug. 13, the New York City Dept. of
The board of the North Texas Tollway Authority has hired Prairie Link Constructors LLC, a team composed of Fluor EPCM Services, Irving, Texas, and Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Inc., Atlanta, to build Phase 4 of state Highway 161 in the agency’s first design-build contract, worth $414 million. The winning effort was 32% lower than the authority’s original $610-million estimate for the project. Prairie Link Constructors also includes the Fort Worth office of AECOM Technology Corp. as designer, Richardson, Texas-based Halff Associates for drainage design, and PSI, Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., to handle independent quality assurance and control. The phase includes 6.5 miles
Virginia has shelved plans to add 56 miles of high-occupancy toll lanes to the congested I-95/395 corridor outside Washington, D.C., due in part to concerns that bond markets may be unreceptive to the state’s latest transportation venture. The project was set to reach commercial close this month with the consortium of Fluor Enterprises, Irving, Texas, and Australia-based Transurban Group and start construction in mid-2010. But citing “challenging credit market conditions,” Virginia Transportation Secretary Pierce Homer said on Aug. 14 the initiative would not go forward at this time. He added that local government and community concerns also contributed to postponing
Chicago Transit Authority this fall plans to begin an environmental impact study of upgrades to three rail lines for projects that would cost the agency $1.98 billion. The mass-transit program would extend 5.3 miles of elevated, double track to the city's Red Line, 2.3 miles of trench-and-elevated, double track to the Orange Line and 1.6 miles of elevated, single track to the Yellow Line and calls for building six new train stations. The agency is now seeking about $57 million in federal funding to move forward with the EIS and preliminary engineering. CTA has selected a joint venture of CDM,
Contractors are preparing to hand over Italy’s newest section of high-speed railroad to the state’s operator, Ferrovie Italiane, for testing. The 5.6-km Novara–Milan section of the Turin-Venice line is due to start service this December. The new Bologna-Florence line, handed over on June 30, also will become operational in December. Nine tunnels, the longest extending 18.5 km, carry 93% of this 78-km line along the Apennine Mountains. Photo: Impregilo Bologna-Florence line featured New Austrian Tunnelling Method. Impregilo S.p.A, Milan, leads consortiums handling turnkey construction of both sections, part of the high-speed network being developed by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana S.p.A. (RFI),
Restoration work for a rail-to-trail with a lift—elevated 18 ft to 20 ft on an abandoned trestle—is called “an engineer’s dream,” even though parts of the 71-year-old steel structure, not used for commerce since 1980, were in “terrible condition,” says the structural engineer charged with preserving the section of the trestle that slices through, between and above 10 blocks of buildings and streets on Manhattan’s West Side. It is a dream because the elevated rail line, renamed the High Line in its reincarnation as a linear urban park, was designed for a 10,000-psf live load during its active years, when
Doubling up in Las Vegas usually means doubling the size of your bet. At the new terminal at McCarran International Airport, the steel erector’s detailing subcontractors doubled the number of staff working on the project. That and other measures other measures paid off big. Slide Show Photo: SME Steel Contractors/Michael Moore Terminal 3 is expected to open in mid-2012 and will cost approximately $2.4 billion. It will span 1.9 million square feet, and include 14 gates and a multistory parking garage. The Terminal’s frame, 300 ft wide and a half mile long, rose from the desert floor this summer. General
The airport world marked the latest leg of its journey toward standardizing sustainability this month in Chicago. The Chicago Dept. of Aviation, which is running a $6.6-billion modernization program, has unveiled the latest version of a sustainability manual that now offers specific guidelines and scoring systems for design, construction, operations and maintenance, concessions and tenants at airports. “Say goodbye to the old manual and hello to a new sustainable airport,” says Eugene Peters, director with Ricondo & Associates Inc., a Chicago-based aviation consultant. “This applies to everything...not just what you build but how you built it. Photo: OMP Green Airport
The University of Akron, paired with the Defense Metals Technology Center, a Dept. of Defense-funded institution in North Canton, Ohio, this fall will hold a contest calling for pedestrian-bridge designs that specify titanium. The bridge will connect the university’s Quaker Square residence hall to the main part of the campus over high-traffic railroad tracks. Contest staff hopes the bridge project, which may garner enough funding in donations for construction, promotes greater commercial construction use of titanium and advocates its lightweight quality and resilience. Titanium’s high cost precludes its use on infrastructure projects. DMTC hopes the metal’s demand will rise and
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