Louisiana drivers are paying a congestion tax, as well as wasting time and money on sitting in traffic that is caused, in part, by Louisiana’s failure to adequately fund transportation, says Ken Perret, president of the Louisiana Good Roads and Transportation Association (http://www.louisianagoodroads.org/index.html). Baton Rouge has the worst traffic congestion in the nation among mid-sized cities, according to the Texas Transportation Institute’s (TTI) Urban Mobility Report 2010 (http://tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility_report_2010.pdf). The College Station, Texas-based organization is a part of Texas A&M University system and a Texas state agency. PERRET The cost to Louisiana’s capital city drivers is equivalent to 37 hours, 30

The last fully funded segment of the $622 million I-49 North extension from I-220 in Shreveport to the Arkansas state line was awarded on February 18 by the Louisiana Dept. of Transportation and Development (DOTD). James Construction Group LLC, Baton Rouge, won a $25.7-million contract to build a 3.4-mile segment of the four-lane interstate from La. Hwy 530 to La. Hwy 170. Work should begin this spring and last until spring 2013. To date, the Louisiana DOTD has awarded nine contracts valued at $460 million for construction of the I-49 North corridor. Two remaining segments of the corridor–critical to freight

By April, the power will go on in the $1.4-billion, 2-billion-gallon-per-day Catskill/Delaware Ultraviolet Disinfection Facility, the world�s largest. The plant is being built by the New York City Dept. of Environmental Protection in a county to the north to deliver safe drinking water to the city�s nine million residents. Photo: Courtesy of Welsbach Electric Corp. Up to 2 billion gallons of water can pass through the plant�s four UV galleries every day. Welsbach is using 3D CAD to weave the 570,000 ft of conduit and 4.5 million ft of wire required to support the 56,480-volt UV units. “We are supposed

By April, the power will go on in the $1.4-billion, 2-billion-gallon-per-day Catskill/Delaware Ultraviolet Disinfection Facility, the world�s largest. The plant is being built by the New York City Dept. of Environmental Protection in a county to the north to deliver safe drinking water to the city�s nine million residents. By April, the power will go on in the $1.4-billion, 2-billion-gallon-per-day Catskill/Delaware Ultraviolet Disinfection Facility, the world’s largest. The plant is being built by the New York City Dept. of Environ-mental Protection in a county to the north to deliver safe drinking water to the city’s nine million residents. “We are

Dwayne Smith, a senior engineer at URS Corp., San Francisco, is a geotechnical program manager on a levee enlargement project in New Orleans that is shaving a decade off the time it normally takes to build and consolidate such a structure. Photo: Courtesy Angelle Bergeron Smith's design uses sand, fabric, rock and clay stabbed with 8.8 million linear ft of wick drains to speed the work. Related Links: ENR: The Top 25 Newsmakers of 2010 Joe Collins: Hoisting Hero Sent Clear Message to Industry When Voting for Higher Safety Randy Holman: Corps Manager Has the Right Rx for DOD�s Medical

Steve Underwood, project manager with joint venture MTI, is orchestrating the span-by-span lift and assembly sequence for superstructure erection on the $1.2-billion widening of the Huey P. Long Bridge over the Mississippi River at New Orleans.

Following Hurricane Katrina’s 2005 attack on New Orleans, the best minds in the international water-resources industry began seeking innovative ways to rebuild the city’s storm-surge defenses.

It will be late summer before drivers cross the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere, yet for Frank Daams, the new bridge essentially was complete in early January when crews installed the last two 830-ft-long cables and stressed each of their 44 steel strands. “As far as I’m concerned, it is finished,” says Daams, project manager for Audubon Bridge Constructors, a joint venture of Flatiron Constructors Inc., Longmont, Colo.; Granite Construction, Watsonville, Calif., and Parsons Transportation Group Inc., Washington, D.C. “Now all we have are little details to get it open to traffic.” The John James Audubon Bridge crossing

Dwayne Smith, a senior engineer at URS Corp., San Francisco, is a geotechnical program manager on a levee enlargement project in New Orleans that is shaving a decade off the time it normally takes to build and consolidate such a structure.

Colombian crews have closed two-thirds of a large levee-canal breach that opened on Nov. 30 and spilled millions of gallons of Magdalena River water across vast sections of the country’s coastal plain. The disastrous flooding, worsened by persistent rainfall, has killed several hundred people, left millions homeless and resulted in billions of dollars in property damage to the South American nation. Photo: Vali Cooper International, LLC/BAR The site of Colombian towns flooded to the rafters recalls visions of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans in 2005 and, at least in the case of the Dique Canal breach, the silent risk levees