With the 2009 federal fiscal year set to end Sept. 30, House and Senate negotiators have agreed on a government-wide stopgap measure that would provide enough money to keep federal agencies operating for one additional month. Lawmakers hope that the "continuing resolution," which runs through Oct. 31, will provide time for congressional appropriators to reach agreement on the spending bills for the full fiscal 2010. Attached to the "CR," on which House and Senate conferees reached agreement Sept. 24, are parallel one-month funding and operating authority extensions for surface transportation and Federal Aviation Administration programs. Current highway-transit and aviation authorization
France’s government has announced a $10.3-billion freight-railroad investment program that aims to take two million trucks off the roads a year by 2020 and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by over two million tonnes. At the same time, the government has begun procuring four new high-speed passenger lines totaling 660 kilometers, three of them under public-private partnerships. France’s high-speed network is planned to double in size to 4,000 km by 2020.
In the second-largest application ever of its kind, hundreds of truckloads of polystyrene block are helping expedite an expansion of Salt Lake City’s Transit Express (TRAX) light-rail system. The lightweight material, akin to styrofoam, is helping Utah Transit Authority save at least $20 million and eight months of time by avoiding soil settlement issues. Foam-filled foundations consist of polystyrene blocks used to prevent settlement along route of Utah light-rail system. The $370-million, four-station project extends the existing 19-mile, 28-station dual-line system five miles. A joint venture of Stacy and Witbeck Inc., Alameda, Calif., and Kiewit Western Co., Littleton, Colo., holds
Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) expects to receive $45 million in previously approved SAFETEA-LU funding from the Federal Railroad Administration for planning and environmental analysis of the first segment of a $12-billion magnetic-levitation rail line from Las Vegas to Primm, Calif. The 269-mile line from Anaheim, Calif., to Las Vegas would be capable of speeds of up to 310 mph. FRA has not confirmed the announcement.
Next year, officials at Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC) in California will wrap up a $1.3-billion modernization program that adds more than 840,000 sq ft of new terminal space, a 1.6-million-sq-ft consolidated rental car and parking garage, and a streamlined internal road network. Photo: Jim Parson / ENR Fast Track San Jose airport expansion, including a new terminal, used a design-build approach that helped shave some seven years and $3 billion off original estimates. The program only got under way in mid-2007 and was originally projected to cost more than three times as much and take 10
The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is close to completing tunneling for its second phase of construction, with less than 2 kilometers left out of 35 km, following the completion of India’s longest tunnel in an urban area built using the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM). The 2.85-km-long tunnel is part of the 22.7-km Airport Express Line, which will connect the Delhi city center to the international airport when completed in the summer of 2010. Photo: Neelam Mathews / ENR Delhi Metro rail cars are delivered by Russian Antonov cargo plane earlier this year. Photo: Delhi Metro Rail Corp. New
Exasperated with neglect from the government of India’s eastern state of Bihar, two remote villages on top of a hill have built a 4-kilometer-long road using the most basic tools, including hammers, chisels and trowels. Barwan Kala and Barwan Khurd, located in the forested Kaimur Hills, have a combined population of 3,000. most of whom are farmers. Photo: Prashant Ravi Villagers used muscle-powered levers to remove boulders from road’s path. “We are cursed,” says Chandrama Yadav, a local resident involved in the construction work in an exclusive to ENR. “Over 100 men between 30 and 60 years are not married
More than two million Muslims travel to Mecca each year to participate in the annual Hajj, or pilgrimage, which takes place over six days. To improve traffic movement, the Saudi government will build an 18-kilometer-long monorail system linking the pilgrimage sites. Trains on four elevated tracks will carry up to 20,000 pilgrims per hour, transporting as many as 500,000 pilgrims every six to eight hours. According to a report issued by the Supreme Hajj Committee, once the monorail is operating it will allow for removal of 53,000 buses and other vehicles. The monorail is being built by China Railway Construction
Only the giant cruise ships sidled up against the riverbank offer any hint of what lies below Shanghai’s newest stretch of green along the Huangpu River in the resurgent North Bund district. The Shanghai Port International Cruise Terminal Development Co. Ltd. wanted its 30,000-sq-meter passenger terminal, which had its soft opening last year, to disappear below grade, except for an iconic, 4,000-sq-m observatory on stilts that resembles either a bubble, spaceship or a giant bug. The public owner, part of the Shanghai port authority, wanted the world’s first underground cruise terminal to be topped by a park. Slide Show Photo:
Four big consortiums are due next month to begin calculating bids for the estimated $1.9 billion of tunneling work on the next 15.5-kilometer underground extension of Denmark’s Copenhagen metro, the Cityringen line. As arbitrators continue grappling with $385 million in claims for extra payment over the system’s seven-year-old first phase, Copenhagen officials plan to start work on Cityringen by next summer. By bidding construction of Cityringen’s 17 stations separately from the tunneling work, project owner Metroselskabet hopes to avoid the sort of dispute that reportedly impeded progress on early phases, says procurement project manager Jens Gravgaard. Photo: Metroselskabet More test
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