In 2011, residents of Daybreak, a 4,200-acre master-planned community in South Jordan, Utah, will drive, bike or walk across the $2-million Brookside Bridge, which is made almost completely out of recycled materials. By then, project officials hope an environmental rating system for infrastructure will exist to quantify the bridge’s eco-friendliness. Photo Courtesy Of Kennecott Land Precast arches made out of recycled concrete were built on site, not shipped. Photo Courtesy Of Kennecott Land Builders of a Utah community bridge want a green rating. This June, contractor Ralph L. Wads-worth Construction, Salt Lake City, took two days, 500 worker-hours and twin
Photo: Tom Lilly Related Links: Willis Makes Waves: New York Bridge Finds New Home The new Willis Avenue Bridge on Manhattan’s Harlem River completed the final leg of its journey from upstate New York on July 26. The 2,400-ton, 350-ft-long swing bridge was floated into place by Weeks Marine Inc., Cranford, N.J., on two barges. Hardesty & Hanover LLP, New York City, provided the design and construction support for the bridge. According to project manager Bill Nyman, two separate barges will be used to support the span at its ends during installation, slated for Aug. 9. The span will then
Shovels, hammers or hard hats were nowhere in sight. Instead, hair curlers, buttons and paper clips were used to construct future train stations for California’s new proposed high-speed rail. Held in Downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, July 17, the “groundbreaking” was part of an interactive community design forum to engage the public on high-speed rail. The event was hosted by railLA, an organization comprised of the Los Angeles Chapters of the American Institute of Architects (AIA/LA) and the American Planning Association (APA-LA), created to raise public awareness about the future of high-speed rail. “We are doing these workshops to get
The California Dept. of Transportation is nearing completion of a $5-million experimental project using a plate-pile system to stabilize almost 2 miles of embankment at an interchange near Colusa, Calif. Caltrans officials say the method may shave $3 million off the cost of a conventional method. Caltrans is using a proprietary system in which steel plates are affixed to poles, or piles, and inserted into stable strata underlying loose soil, transmitting the slide forces downward to the stiffer material. The technique has been used on several municipal projects but is a first for Caltrans, says Richard Short, founder and president
The Israeli government will proceed with detailed planning for a new $410-million international airport at Timna. The terminal will serve Eilat, the southern Red Sea port and a major tourist destination. The Transport Ministry will seek proposals in September for a detailed design plan. The new airport is expected to be funded through the sale of the existing facility that it is replacing. That sale will be used to develop new hotels and tourist facilities for the Eilat resort area.
Photo: Courtesy Missouri Dept. Of Transportation Missouri DOT Searches for Reasons Behind Ramp Collapse Missouri’s Dept. of Transportation and engineering consultant HNTB are investigating why a section of interstate highway ramp in southern Kansas City collapsed on July 17. The earth beneath a ramp that connects I-470 with I-435 gave way, collapsing part of a 42-ft-high retaining wall and creating a 35-ft-wide, 200-ft-long hole in the pavement. The highway serves some 35,000 vehicles per day. MoDOT engineer Jesse Skinner says MoDOT and HNTB are analyzing geologic data to see whether the failure occurred in the soil or underlying shale. The
Ahighway improvement project that runs through a national park is serving as a test case for formalizing a road rating system similar to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design building rating system. Photo: DEA A road improvement project may be the first to be officially rated “green.” The 3.8-mile, $16-million U.S. 97 Lava Butte-South Century Drive upgrade in central Oregon runs through the Newberry National Monument. It is the furthest along of three projects the Oregon Dept. of Transportation will evaluate to determine if it will adopt standards set by Greenroads, unveiled by the University of Washington and CH2M
After scaling back its expansion plans in the face of spiraling construction costs, Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport, referred to as SJC, is putting the finishing touches on a three-year, $1.3-billion design-build construction program that demonstrates how less really can be more. Photo: SJC California airport employed design-build to scale back costs on massive expansion. The program’s centerpiece—the sleek new 127,000-sq-ft metal-and-glass-paneled Terminal B—began full operation on June 30 as well as a 1.6 million-sq-ft, seven-level precast consolidated rental car and public parking garage, which is known by the acronym ConRAC. Last fall, SJC completed the modernization of
Florida Dept. of Transportation officials and their advisers aren’t likely to forget the year 2008. FDOT was trying to close on two different billion-dollar-plus public-private partnerships, but the financial markets were collapsing. In September, while still restructuring the year-delayed Port of Miami Tunnel (POMT) deal, FDOT accepted bids for a $2-billion Interstate 595 expansion. Just days later, emblematic of market conditions, the financial giant Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. “Credit was just not obtainable,” recalls Jeff Parker, founder of Jeffrey A. Parker & Associates Inc., Chilmark, Mass., a financial adviser to FDOT. “The bid assumed $900 million in private activity
Causes and solutions are proving elusive on an Oregon bridge project in which two bents moved out of plumb during construction. Last winter, the trouble was noticed on the $215-million U.S. 20 Pioneer Mountain-Eddyville highway near the Oregon coast. Joe Squire, project manager for the Oregon Dept. of Transportation, says a lateral load from adjacent fill and subsurface ground pressure may have caused the shifts in two of the 20 bents on the 10-bridge project. The project consists of a six-and-a-half mile section of new road that bypasses a 10-mile stretch of substandard highway. Six of the 10 bridges are
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