One of President Obama’s final pitches for passage of the stimulus package was the uncompleted Fairfax County Parkway in northern Virginia. Although the Virginia Dept. of Transportation (VDOT) in 2004 allocated $89 million to complete a 2-mile segment adjacent to Fort Belvoir and Interstate 95, the project stalled due to its route across a portion of the Army’s Engineer Proving Ground (EPG), an 820-acre tract heavily contaminated from years of ordnance testing and training activities. Fairfax, Va. Photo: Jim Parsons / ENR New road will carry thousands of workers to government offices in suburban Virginia. Related Links: Stimulus: A Snapshot
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
Congress’s fast action on the $787.2-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in February brought some much-needed cheer to the nation’s transportation contractors. With state DOT budgets withered by the recession, gas prices and financial market upheaval, contractors expected the influx of more than $49.3 billion in immediate highway, transit, and airport funding to reenergize the market and, hopefully, keep them busy until the larger economy begins to rebound. But more than six months after President Obama signed ARRA into law, many in the industry are still waiting for those hoped-for effects to kick in. Photo: Flatiron Washington, N.C., bypass
The typically methodical nature of oil and gas facility development could not fully insulate the sector’s construction activity from the economic roller coaster of the past 12 months, which saw commodity prices for crude oil skyrocket to $140 a barrel, than plummet just as quickly to the low $30s as motorists and industries around the world slashed consumption. Photo: Bechtel Work on Motiva’s Port Arthur refinery could ramp up by beginning of the new year. Photo: Bechtel Keystone pipeline will bring Canadian crude to the U.S. “The market downturn and financial crisis curbed everything,” says Peter Stalenhoef, president and COO
State transportation officials are avoiding weeks or even months of wait time in inspecting underwater bridge components by using the latest in sonar imaging technology. The method’s potential will become the focus of a federal study next year. Photo: Randalls Photography Advanced technology helped inspectors get images of underwater bridge piers and footings when diving was too dangerous. This spring’s record floods posed high risks for the 80-year-old Sorlie Bridge, which connects Grand Forks, N.D., and East Grand Forks, Minn. Flowing 30 ft higher than normal, the fast-moving Red River of the North engulfed the 605-ft-long, two-span truss structure’s timber
As its investigation continues into the deadly June 22 crash of two Metrorail cars in suburban Maryland near Washington, D.C., the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is urging the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) to incorporate enhanced safety redundancy into its train control system as quickly as possible. The agency also called on the Federal Transit Administration to advise other transit agencies using similar automated controls to evaluate their systems for adequate safety redundancy. Metrorail's control system, which automatically regulates train speed and location, has come under scrutiny after a train traveling at high speed rear-ended a stopped train,
After a 12-month experience rivaling the most hairraising theme-park thrill ride, transportation design firms are finally enjoying a sense of stability, coupled with some optimism about the future. The industry’s biggest influence in recent months has been $40 billion in transportation infrastructure funding from President Obama’s economic stimulus program. Though directed primarily to shovel-ready projects, the stimulus funding is also finding its way to design firms, according to Jim Lyman, chief operating officer for David Evans & Associates, Portland, Ore. Photo: Vince Streano Photography Bridge programs remain strong as a direct result of the I-35 collapse. Related Links: The Top
New York Yankees fans will have a facility that doesn’t require $1,200 tickets starting on May 23 when the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Metro-North Railroad opens the new $91- million Yankees-East 153rd Street Station. Photo: CCA Civil / Halmar International, LLC Design-built station links to new Yankee Stadium. Photo: CCA Civil / Halmar International, LLC Mostly precast rail station will greet waves of Yankee fans in the Bronx. The largest and newest of Metro-North’s 120 outlying stations, the 55,000-sq-ft facility features twin 850-ft-long platforms to accommodate 10-car trains on four tracks, a 10,000-sq-ft overhead mezzanine and a 425-ft-long, 25-ft-wide
For John R. Lawson II, president of W.M. Jordan Company, life got rather interesting Thursday afternoon. That’s when news broke that Lawson’s Newport News, Va.-based construction company had offered a $10/hour job to former NFL star Michael Vick, who will soon complete a 23-month sentence for orchestrating a dogfighting operation in Surry County, Va. Photo: AP/Wideworld Former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, pictured leaving federal court in 2007 after pleading guilty to a dogfighting charge in Richmond, Va., is set to earn $10 an hour this summer working for a highway contractor in Virginia. Within hours, Lawson’s voicemail was overflowing
Construction industry groups say they welcome the Obama administration’s plans announced on March 16 to free up credit markets for small businesses by temporarily increasing federal guarantees on Small Business Administration (SBA) loans to 90%, eliminating fees on 7(a) and 504 loan applications and purchasing securities backed by those loans. But they say an even more beneficial change for construction firms is the less-heralded expansion of SBA’s surety bond program. As part of the administration’s Financial Stability Plan announced by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in February, the maximum amount for construction contracts that qualify for SBAguaranteed surety bonds is being
