Hemmed in on one side by the ocean shore and on the other by a major live rail line, the NZ $50-million, or U.S. $37.5-million, Ngauranga to Aotea Quay Upgrade is finally coming to grips with one of the nation’s most congested stretches of highway.New Zealand’s State Highway One (SH1) is the nation’s most important road, linking the capital, Wellington, to Auckland and running the entire length of the North Island. Traffic engineers are unplugging a number of bottlenecks to reduce journey times and improve safety as the country’s population grows and traffic increases.One urgent project is repairing a notorious
Related Links: Full Competition Gallery The 10 Longest Arch Bridges in the World From fantastic to conventional, designs for a new pedestrian bridge over London’s River Thames have flooded the offices of the Borough of Wandsworth in response to its international ideas competition. The council is now displaying the 74 entrants for public comment before a panel of judges draws up a shortlist this March.With the competition attracting the “biggest names in architecture and engineering” as well as more humble designers, officials are keeping all the submissions anonymous to maintain a level playing field.“We challenged the world’s designers to come
Image Courtesy John Laing A Laing consortium started work in late 2014 on the 25-year DBFO for a new 60,000-seat stadium in Perth. Global infrastructure owner-developer John Laing plc., London, recently stepped up its Australian operations by closing a $1.7-billion deal to design, build, finance, operate and maintain (DBFOM) a light rail project in Sydney.Laing is “hopeful” about its Australian prospects, noted chief executive Olivier Brousse, following the February 12 partial initial public offering of the company in London.For its latest Australian venture, Laing took up just under a third of the shares in ALTRAC Light Rail Partnership, which reached
Photo Courtesy of NOCoE The National Operations Center of Excellence was launched in January. Dennis Motiani, executive director, and the NOCoE board of directors commemorate the occasion at the 94th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington, D.C. From left: Shailen Bhatt, Jeff Lindley, Laurie Matkowski, Dennis Motiani, Doug Wiersig, John Barton, Don Hunt, Greg Johnson, Harry Voccola and Abbas Mohaddes. Related Links: DOTS Slow to Change DOT Moves to Streamline TIFIA Loan Decisions A new era of transportation is right around the corner—one where driverless, autonomous vehicles cruise public roadways utilizing ever-advancing mobile and location-based electronics to
Related Links: CMAP Site Chicago Infrastructure Trust Passes First-Ever Financing Deal Chicago To Rehab Blue Line in 2014 The Chicago Metropolitan Agency of Planning (CMAP) this month launched a website that aims to help the public become more involved in identifying and prioritizing infrastructure investments.The CMAP site, allows taxpayers to "peek under the hood" of the Chicago transportation system, says CMAP spokesman Tom Garritano. Chicago loses $7 billion in fuel and productivity because of congestion, bad roads and missed transit connections. Old rail infrastructure causes about 7,800 hours of delay each weekday for more than 380,000 motorists, says CMAP.CMAP's criticism
Related Links: Contractor: Collapsed Ohio Overpass Had Engineer-Stamped Demo Plans Engineering Oversight Might Have Prevented Ohio Overpass Collapse, Says Bridge Inspector Kokosing Construction's preliminary internal investigations have detected an engineering error that may have contributed to the collapse of the Hopple Street Ramp Bridge and the death of Brandon Carl, according to a Feb. 13 statement.CEO William Brian Burgett apologized and said that the contractor has hired Jaansen & Spaans to design all future bridge-demolition plans in close collaboration with Kokosing staff, and shared its findings with the Ohio Dept. of Transportation and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which
Photo Courtesy of Metropolitan Transit Authority While projects face the perils of optimistic initial cost estimates, they can be "sold" to the public with honesty and outreach, says MTACC chief. Photo Courtesy of Metropolitan Transit Authority Related Links: Infrastructure Megaprojects: Looking For Legacies Investigators Eye Drill Holes, Decking After Dangerous Blast Meet the $17-Billion Man of the New York City-area MTA Megaprojects blow through initial budget estimates on a regular basis, contends Michael Horodniceanu, president of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority Capital Construction Co., . That certainly has been the case with MTACC's East Side Access (ESA) rail project:
Related Links: Project Members Ponder Untold Stories of the Bay Bridge Boston Begins Reaping Benefits Of Big Dig In NYC, An Ambassador Gains Public Acceptance Of Megaprojects California High-Speed Rail Proponents Plow Forward Transportation's Next Chapter: Maintenance, Mobility, Money "If God went to a local community board meeting and presented a plan to build the Garden of Eden," says a wry Sam Schwartz, New York City Dept. of Transportation's former first deputy commissioner, "people would protest the location, the design and how they're going to treat the serpent."Is public suspicion justified? In his book "Megaprojects and Risk," Oxford professor Bent
Photo Courtesy of Nevada DOT NDOT bid out the first phase of the Boulder City bypass with the option to use asphalt or concrete. The latter was picked due to life-cycle costs. Related Links: Boosting Fuel Economy Where The Rubber Meets the Road Competition Can Help Our Roads Evolve Citing long-term life-cycle costs, officials at Nevada Dept. of Transportation have awarded the first phase of the planned Boulder City Bypass to a contractor that proposed paving the highway section with concrete, despite this proposal costing $3 million more than the lowest bid, which planned to use asphalt."We opted to use
Photo Courtesy of Caltrans Making the media wait for briefings did not ease tough scrutiny of the new bridge. Photo Courtesy of Caltrans Related Links: Infrastructure Megaprojects: Looking For Legacies Temporary Fix Will Allow San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to Open on Time Bay Bridge Errors Put Caltrans Under Fire A lengthy delay mandated by the governor, a rebid and a fierce debate over the design of the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge were just the beginning. Over the course of the 11-year construction period came allegations, faulty rods, foundation questions and even an FBI investigation on the $6.4-billion crossing, which
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