Related Links: Precast Concrete Network Arch Bridge Is A First Unusually Slender Arch Marks Prague Bridge Arch bridges are one of the oldest types of bridges. The oldest known bridge in the world known to still be in use is the Caravan Bridge, a stone arch bridge across the Meles River in Izmir, Turkey. It was built in 850 B.C.Roman engineers built many arch bridges, quite a few of which are still standing. Probably the most famous is the Pont du Gard, an aqueduct bridge in southern France. Built in the first century A.D., it features three tiers of limestone
Image Courtesy of InterBering LLC The Moscow-Beijing high-speed rail line may one day connect to a possible tunnel under the Bering Strait to North America. Related Links: Dream Projects: Bering Strait Tunnel China has bagged a Russian contract to build a high-speed railway that would connect Moscow to Beijing in just 48 hours. This is part of a more grandiose plan to connect China with the United States and Canada by creating a tunnel in the Pacific."If the funds are raised smoothly … the line can be completed in five years at the quickest," Wang Meng-shu, a tunnel and railway
Related Links: $741M Overhaul of San Ysidro Land Port of Entry Burdened by Myriad Site Constraints San Ysidro Land Port of Entry The maelstrom of the $741-million remake of the world's busiest border crossing—the San Ysidro Land Port of Entry between Southern California and Mexico—was the 570-ft-long by 55-ft-wide cable-stayed canopy over the 24 lanes of tandem inspection booths that process 50,000 vehicles daily. The general contractor's agreement with SYLPOE not to worsen the already-lengthy vehicle wait times during construction of the canopy—and the tandem replacement booths—turned an intensely difficult project into a hellish one."The canopy was a pretty complicated
Related Links: Transportation Expert Manages With Tenacity Massachusetts Delays $1-billion Boston Line Extension to 2018 The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has received a tentative federal funding commitment for nearly $1 billion, almost half the cost of constructing the Green Line extension project. Congress must approve the grant.In a Dec. 1 letter to Congress, Therese McMillan, acting administrator of the Federal Transportation Administration, announced plans to "execute a full funding grant agreement," totaling $996 million for design and construction of the 4.7-mile Green Line extension. The grant would include the construction of six new stations to carry trains into Somerville and,
Buoyed by court rulings and a dedicated funding source from the state's cap-and-trade program, administrators of California's ambitious high-speed-rail program are moving forward with initial construction and renewed optimism.
Photo Courtesy of WSDOT Settlement of more than an inch has hampered excavation efforts to rescue TBM Bertha. Enlarge Related Links: Divers Searching for Way To Get TBM 'Bertha' Moving Again Seattle Tunneling Behemoth Bertha Awaits Repairs to Bearing Seals Differential settlement of more than an inch has temporarily shut down efforts on the already-stalled Alaskan Way Viaduct project under downtown Seattle. Excavation had been underway on an access pit that was designed to repair "Bertha," the stuck tunnel-boring machine (TBM), as crews continue to monitor the movement on surrounding buildings.The 57.5-ft-dia machine has been stuck since December 2013, just
Photo Courtesy GSA / Benjamin Benschneider The Peace Arch Land Port of Entry redo in Blaine, Wash., includes 10 primary-inspection lanes and double the capacity of the 1976 facility. Related Links: $741M Overhaul of San Ysidro Land Port of Entry Burdened by Myriad Site Constraints After a funding lull, U.S. General Services Administration appropriations are bouncing back for "land ports of entry" projects.In the newly enacted spending bill for the rest of fiscal year 2015, GSA's account allotment for its new-construction includes $216.8 million for the San Ysidro project and $98.1 million for a port in Calexico, Calif. Those were
Related Links: U.S. Land Port of Entry Funding Rebounds San Ysidro Land Port's Team Tames the Logistical Monster Miller Hull Partnership Hensel Phelps With the most unsettling work done, all is calm at the world's busiest border crossing—the 40-acre San Ysidro Land Port of Entry, which is nearly four years into a three-phase $741-million transformation. Once worrisome, the incessant hum of the 50,000 vehicles that line up each day to cross into California from Mexico is now music to the ears of the members of the SYLPOE team, who, for three-plus years, had to keep more than 24 lanes of
Related Links: Mammoth Lock Takes Shape in Belgium Belgian Diabolo Project Opens On Schedule Although Europe's second-largest port in Antwerp, Belgium, has more than 1,000 kilometers of railroad tracks, it moves only 8% of its throughput by rail. To help increase train use, the country’s railroad infrastructure manager, Infrabel N.V., has just completed the nation’s longest freight tunnel linking the port’s two halves on either side of the River Scheldt.The $1.1-billion Liefkenshoek freight tunnel includes roughly 6 km of new 7.3-meter-dia twin bores under the river, bypassing a 20-km route around South Antwerp, says Infrabel’s chief spokesman Frédéric Petit. With
Enlarge Map by Jeffrey Cox/ ENR This new line will extend rail service to Calabar. China Railway Construction Corp. will export $4 billion worth of construction machinery, trains and steel products to Nigeria for the construction of the $11.97-billion Coastal Railway Project, whose final contract was signed in the West Africa nation’s capital, Abuja, in November.The Chinese firm said that, under the contract, the largest single award for any Chinese company overseas, a single track of 1,402-kilometer-long standard-gauge railway will be constructed to link the commercial city of Lagos to the eastern port city of Calabar on the Nigerian coast.CRCC
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