Mar/April TB 2014

Mar.-Apr. 2014 TransportationBuilder 1

builder® March-April 2014

Transportation Project Innovation

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INNOVATIONUNDERNEATH IT ALL

®

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MAR-APR 2014VOL. 26, NO. 2contents

The official publication of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association

www.transportationbuilder.org

FEATURES COLUMNS

Chairman’s Message

President’s Desk

AEM Corner

Every Day Counts: Promoting Innovative Contracting Solutions to Improve Project Delivery

Project Profiles: Transportation Design & Construction Innovations

Federal Issues Program Schedule-At-A-Glance

Patience Pays, EPA Stormwater Victory for Transportation

“I Want You to Want Me”: Hiring Young Talent in the Construction Industry

610

22 9

31

33

29

8

TransportationBuilder 3

22

ON THE COVEROver, Under, Around, & ThroughA Look at Innovations Through Three Dimensions14

On the cover: New York Second Avenue Subway. Photo courtesy of Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Photographer: Patrick Cashin.

14

Mar.-Apr. 20144 TransportationBuilder

StaffPUBLISHERT. Peter [email protected]

DEPUTY PUBLISHER Matt [email protected]

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Beth [email protected]

PUBLICATIONS EDITOR & GRAPHIC DESIGNERJenny [email protected]

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

J.J. McCoyFormer transportation reporter for the “Washington Post”

Hari KallaFHWA director, center for accelerating innovation

Nick Goldstein

ARTBA vice president of environmental & regulatory affairs

Brian Binke & Katie HammondBirmingham Group president & CEO and Birmingham Group research & marketing associate

Transportation Builder® (TB) is the official publication of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, a federation whose primary goal is to aggressively grow and protect transportation infrastructure investment to meet the public and business demand for safe and efficient travel. In support of this mission, ARTBA also provides programs and services designed to give its members a global competitive edge. As the only national publication specifically geared toward transportation development professionals, TB represents the primary source of business, legislative and regulatory news critical to the success and future of the transportation construction industry.

Transportation Builder® (ISSN 1043-4054) is published bi-monthly by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA). Postmaster: Send change of address to Transportation Builder®, c/o ARTBA, The ARTBA Building, 1219 28th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20007. Telephone: 202-289-4434, Fax: 202-289-4435, Internet: www.artba.org; E-mail: [email protected]. Periodicals postage paid at Washing-ton, D.C., and additional mailing offices. Subscriptions are $105/year for ARTBA members, which is included in the dues; $120/year for non-members; and $200/year non-U.S. mailing addresses. Copyright ©2014 ARTBA. All rights reserved. Material may not be repro-duced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Reg. U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

Visit us: www.transportationbuilder.org

builder®

Executive CommitteeChairman: Doug Black J3L, LLC, Atlanta, Ga.

Senior Vice Chairman: Nick IvanoffAmmann & Whitney, New York, N.Y.

First Vice Chairman: David S. ZachryZachry Construction Corporation, San Antonio, Texas

Northeastern Region Vice Chairman: John KulkaHRI, Inc., State College, Pa.

Southern Region Vice Chairman: Tom ElmoreEutaw Construction Company, Aberdeen, Miss.

Central Region Vice Chairman: Kathi HolstRoadway Construction & Maintenance Services,

Warrenville, Ill.

Western Region Vice Chairman: Steve McGoughHCSS, Sugar Land, Texas

Vice Chairman At-Large: Ward NyeMartin Marietta Materials, Inc., Raleigh, N.C.

Vice Chairman At-Large: Scott L. CasselsKiewit Infrastructure Group, Inc., Kiewit Corporation,

Omaha, Neb.

Vice Chairman At-Large: Melissa TooleyTexas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University

College Station, Texas

Vice Chairman At-Large: Bob AlgerThe Lane Construction Corporation, Cheshire, Conn.

Vice Chairman At-Large: John Houle3M Traffic Safety & Security Division, St. Paul, Minn.

Vice Chairman At-Large: Mike DonninoGranite Construction Company, Lewisville, Texas

Treasurer: Tom HillSummit Materials, LLC, Denver, Colo.

Secretary: Pete RuaneARTBA, Washington, D.C.

ARTBA-TDF Board of Trustees Chairman: Leo Vecellio, Jr.Vecellio Group, Inc., West Palm Beach, Fla.

Contractors Division President: Pete GetchellPKF-Mark III, Inc., Newtown Pa.

Contractors Division First Vice President: Jeff ClydeW.W. Clyde & Co., Springville, Utah

Research & Education Division President: Dr. R. Clark GravesKentucky Transportation Center, Lexington, Ky.

AEM Representative: Ron DeFeoTEREX Corporation, Westport, Conn.

Materials & Services Division President: Mike FlowersAmerican Bridge Company, Corapolis, Pa.

Planning & Design Division President: Matthew CummingsAECOM, Philadelphia, Pa.

Public-Private Partnerships Division President: Thomas StonerH.W. Lochner, Inc., Tampa, Fla.

Transportation Safety Industry Division President: Sue ReissImpact Recovery Systems, San Antonio, Texas

Transportation Officials Division President: Eric SeibringPiatt County, Ill. Assn. of County Engineers, Monticello, Ill.

Council of State Executives: Pat GossWIsconsin Transportation Builders Association,

Madison, Wis.

Immediate Past ARTBA Chairman: Steve WrightWright Brothers Construction, Co, Inc., Charleston, Tenn.

Past Chairman’s Council Chairman: Jim MadaraGannett Fleming, Allentown, Pa.

Young Executive Leadership Council Chairman: David HarwoodTerracon, Olathe, Kan.

Joint Committee Representative: Dave GehrParsons Brinckerhoff, Herndon, Va.

Mobile Barriers MBT-1®

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editor’s note

Jenny Ragone,

Publications

Editor & Graphic

Designer

The word “innovation” has been used so often that it almost seems trite—a catch-all phrase people use to invoke superficial excitement about a new product or event. A quick look at my dictionary however, shows it actually comes from the Latin word innovatus, which means “to renew, alter, or change.” A Google search also turned up this definition: “to make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.”

Since the time of the Roman roads, man has been building upon existing knowledge and evolving its methods and tools to construct bigger and better infrastructure. In our cover story, written by former “Washington Post” transportation reporter J.J. McCoy, we spotlight some of the innovative techniques and technologies being used on today’s transportation improvement projects. On page 22, we feature innovation success stories as submitted directly to us by the ARTBA membership.

Finally, given the looming crisis with the Highway Trust Fund, we discuss on pages 8-9 the upcoming ARTBA Federal Issues Program and Transportation Construction Coalition Fly-In, and ARTBA President Pete Ruane explains why you need to be in the Nation’s Capital June 9-11.

Please feel free to share your reactions to any of the articles featured by emailing me: [email protected].

STAY CONNECTED

WITH ARTBAFacebook: American Road & Transportation

Builders Association

Twitter: @artba

YouTube: www.youtube.com/ARTBAmedia

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/artba

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from the chairman

Doug Black

President, J3L, LLC

2014 ARTBA Chairman

The New ARTBA Transportation Investment Advocacy Center

About half of U.S. public investment in transportation comes from state

and local governments. With so much riding on states to finance infrastructure improvements, it’s not surprising that in 2013, nine states considered transportation funding initiatives. This year, there are at least 19.

To help industry allies and stakeholders boost transportation infrastructure funding at the state and local levels through legislation and ballot initiatives, ARTBA recently launched a first-of-its kind “Transportation Investment Advocacy Center™,” or TIAC.

TIAC is a direct product of the ARTBA Strategic Planning Committee (SPC), which recommended in 2011 that the Board of Directors authorize and provide funding for the “creation and

maintenance of a national transportation clearinghouse to assist state chapters and other allies with their own funding and financing programs.” The SPC, which I co-chaired with past ARTBA Chairman Steve Wright, believed that such a valuable resource would help investment initiatives move forward.

The cornerstone of this dynamic education program is: www.transportationinvestment.org. The site is structured so that those interested in taking action do not have to “re-invent the wheel” in order to mount successful campaigns. Our main goal was to put in one place—and promote the sharing of—current strategies, sample political and communications tools, legislative and ballot initiative language, and information on where to obtain professional campaign advice, research and help.

The site features 39 detailed case studies of recent transportation funding campaigns—both successful and unsuccessful—mounted in 28 states, as well as an overview of the various funding and financing mechanisms proposed. It includes the television, radio and print ads, polling data, and media strategies used in the campaigns and is home to a blog, which covers the latest developments from across the country.

The TIAC program also includes an annual event in Washington, D.C., and ongoing webinars for transportation investment advocates featuring case studies, best practices, and the latest in political and media strategies. These learning sessions will be led by seasoned transportation investment campaign managers and consultants.

The inaugural “National Workshop for State & Local Transportation Advocates™” will be held July 16 at the

Washington Court Hotel on Capitol Hill and will include state and local Chamber of Commerce executives, state legislators, state and local transportation officials, “better roads & transportation” groups, industry and labor executives, and leaders of state and local chapters of national organizations with an interest in transportation development programs.

The TIAC program is funded through voluntary contributions to ARTBA’s “Transportation Makes America Work” (TMAW) program, which is aimed at building political support for increased surface transportation investment.

Please take advantage of everything the TIAC site has to offer and let your industry colleagues know about it. As the old adage goes, “knowledge is power.” And by sharing that knowledge, we can empower our allies the state and local levels to help grow the transportation construction market.


T. Peter Ruane

President & CEO

ARTBA

president’s desk

If Congress does not act soon, the federal Highway Trust Fund will be

unable to support any new projects in FY2015, which begins this October 1. Worse yet, recent reports indicate the trust fund will start running into cash flow problems this summer, meaning the Federal Highway Administration will slow down reimbursements to states for existing projects, and many state DOTs will likely slow down payments to contractors.

This is a critical situation, but we can surmount it if the transportation construction industry and users of the system work together to get our message to Capitol Hill.

Every day, ARTBA pushes Congress to act. However, I realize some in the industry may be less aware of this emerging crisis (after all, they have businesses to run) or may bring some preconceived opinions to the discussion. So, to bring this into focus let’s imagine a conversation among three mythical figures within the industry, whom I call “The Utopian,” “The Defeatist” and “The Realist.”

Realist: “Did you hear? The federal Highway Trust Fund won’t have enough revenue to pay for any new projects in a few months.”

Defeatist: “That’s why I’ve given up on federal funding and will just focus on the state and local level from now on.”

Realist: “But the federal highway program provides more than half of capital investment in highways and bridges. What happens if that funding goes away? And will your governor and state legislators raise your state gas tax an average of 21-cents- per-gallon to make up for those lost dollars?”

Defeatist: “It doesn’t matter because the gas tax is dead. People are driving less and using more fuel- efficient vehicles.”

Realist: “Actually ‘vehicle miles traveled’ is increasing after dipping during the recession. And the only reason the federal gas and diesel taxes can’t support current federal investment is because they haven’t been adjusted in over 20 years.”

Utopian: “What are you guys worried about? Congress always waits until the last minute and then takes care of these problems. I’ve got better things to do anyway. Let the associations and people in D.C. figure it out.”

A Highway Trust Fund Conversation With The Utopian, The Defeatist and the Realist

Defeatist: “And I’ve given up on talking to my federal legislators because they don’t seem to understand or care about this issue. They can’t make tough decisions.”

Realist: “But members of Congress often say they need to hear from ‘back home’ before they make an issue a priority. So you’re going to let every other interest group and industry talk to your members of Congress, and then wonder why they’re not focused on what’s important to you?”

Utopian: “Congress knows about this transportation funding problem already. How could they not be on top of this issue? I’m sure they’re working on it.”

Realist: “Many of them DON’T know that federal support for projects is about to run out until constituents tell them about it. DON’T take anything for granted, but DON’T give up either!”

You can probably guess that the “Realist” character personifies ARTBA’s views. We believe this problem is not going away, but there is a solution—IF the industry and our partners work tirelessly in the coming weeks.

You can start by attending the ARTBA Federal Issues Program and Transportation Construction Coalition (TCC) Fly-in on June 9-11. See page 9 for details. Bring along your favorite “Utopian” or “Defeatist” so we can show them first-hand why they need to stay engaged and never wave the white flag of surrender!


Hotel Information

Make your room reservations directly

with the Mayflower Hotel by calling

1.800.468.3571 or 202.347.3000. Ask for

the ARTBA Federal Issues Program rate

of $309 per night, which is guaranteed

through May 9.

Mayflower Hotel

1127 Connecticut Ave.

Washington, D.C. 20036

Sponsors (as of April 18) PlatinumAECOMAEMCase Construction EquipmentParsons Brinckerhoff

GoldHNTBRitchie BrothersSkanska USA Civil, Inc.Volvo Construction Equipment

SilverCH2M HILLGeorge Harms ConstructionHCSS H.W. Lochner, Inc.W.W. Clyde & Co.Michael Baker, Jr., Inc.Trinity Highway Products

Contact Ed Tarrant to become a sponsor:

202.289.4434 or [email protected].

YEDP SESSIONS (continued)

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11 9:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.

Young Executive Development Program

THURSDAY, JUNE 12 8:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Young Executive Development Program

MONDAY, JUNE 9

12:00 – 1:30 p.m. Transportation Development Foundation Trustees

12:30 – 4:00 p.m. Young Executive Development Program

1:00 – 4:00 p.m. Contract Administration Committee Meeting with Federal

Highway Administration

2:30 – 3:30 p.m. Ports and Waterways Council Meeting

3:30 – 5:30 p.m. Executive Committee

4:00 – 6:00 p.m. Joint Young Executive Development Program &

Young Executive Leadership Council

Council

6:30 – 7:30 p.m. Reception

7:30 p.m. Dinner on your own

TUESDAY, JUNE 10

8:30 – 9:30 a.m. Young Executive Development Program

9:30 – 9:45 a.m. Networking Break

9:45 – 11:00 a.m. General Sessions

1:00 – 2:30 p.m. ARTBA Foundation Awards Luncheon

TCC WASHINGTON FLY-IN SCHEDULE (Begins after ARTBA Program)

TUESDAY, JUNE 10 2:30 – 5:00 p.m. TCC Legislative Briefing

5:30 – 7:30 p.m. TCC Capitol Hill Reception

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11 7:00 – 8:00 a.m. TCC Breakfast

8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Meetings with Members of Congress

March-April 2014

ARTBA FEDERAL ISSUES PROGRAM & TCC FLY-IN SCHEDULE-AT-A-GLANCERegister: www.artbafederalissues.org


T he value and trust that the public places in our transportation system demands that we deliver projects in the quickest, most cost-efficient way possible,

while maintaining high standards for safety, quality and environmental protection. In our current climate of constrained budgets and tight schedules, transportation agencies are increasingly turning to alternative contracting methods that allow them to collaborate with contractors early in the design process and deliver projects better, faster and smarter.

The Maryland State Highway Administration used two of these innovative methods for the recently completed Intercounty Connector (ICC). They delivered the $2.5 billion project, a new 18.8-mile highway with numerous interchanges and bridges, using five Design-Build (D-B) contracts.

In D-B, a project’s design and construction phases are combined into one contract, allowing the designer and construction manager to work together to minimize risk while reducing overall delivery time. D-B is not new, it is actually as

old as the pyramids, but legislative contracting reforms that began in the late 1800s eventually separated the design and build phases of construction, and Design-Bid-Build (D-B-B) became the norm. However, today’s complex projects often benefit from the increased, early collaboration and innovation inherent with D-B.

For the ICC, D-B was combined with another contracting innovation called Alternative Technical Concepts (ATCs). An ATC is a request by a proposer during a contract’s advertisement period to modify a contract requirement with a solution that they think will provide a more competitive bid or proposal. When used with D-B, contractors develop one or more ATCs and present them to the agency for a confidential review. If approved, the contractor may use their ATC(s) in their proposal. A stipend may even be provided.

ATCs can be as simple as a change in materials or significantly more complex. An ATC used on the ICC involved reconfiguring an entire interchange to eliminate bridges and retaining walls. It

Every Day Counts FHWA: Promoting Innovative Contracting Solutions to Improve Project Delivery by Hari Kalla


required the state to acquire additional right of way, which was a cost to them, but the overall savings of redesigning the interchange greatly outweighed it.

G.A. & F.C. Wagman, Inc., was one of the ICC’s D-B contractors. “What is good about Design-Build is that you give the risk to the people who can handle it the best,” said Anthony Bednarik, vice president at Wagman. “The state agreed to acquire the right of way, and we provided the savings by eliminating bridges and retaining walls. Submitting the ATC helped us reduce our bid price, and we reduced the owner’s construction cost, as well as long-term costs with fewer bridges to maintain.”

“Any Design-Build project should absolutely have ATCs,” said Bednarik. “To me, the owner is throwing money away if they don’t. The way Design-Build works, you have a bunch of smart people from both sides of the table in design and construction, and they are going to come up with the ideas anyway. So the state might as well take advantage of it.”

The Federal Highway Administration is championing D-B and ATCs through its “Every Day Counts” (EDC) initiative. EDC teams work with the transportation community to identify and promote a new set of innovations every two years, but the initiative’s main focus is to encourage a culture of thinking “outside the box” to solve transportation problems.

While ATCs are most often used with D-B projects, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) pioneered a method for using them on traditional D-B-B projects. This process was used in reconstructing the Hurricane Deck Bridge on the Lake of the Ozarks.

American Bridge Company won the bid on this project after submitting a bold ATC that involved an extensive redesign of MoDOT’s baseline concept. Their solution proposed an entirely new bridge on a parallel alignment, saving more than $8 million over the lowest bid on the unmodified design.

“For Design-Bid-Build, the owner must design a project that is largely constructible by the contractor market they are addressing,” said Scott Gammon, vice president at American Bridge. “So the ATC process gives us an opportunity to optimize the design for construction expertise or technology specific to our company to decrease project cost.”

The Michigan Department of Transportation has also used ATCs as part of D-B-B, piloting the process on the maintenance of traffic (MOT) portion of an alternate bid-type project to rehabilitate seven miles of U.S. 10. Ajax Paving Industries developed an ATC that compressed the project schedule and minimized user delay costs, allowing them to be more competitive in bidding a concrete job against asphalt companies.

“With our ATC we came up with a different layout to the MOT,” said Luke Gordon, project manager for Ajax. “Instead of a part-width style roadway construction, we proposed full-width construction, putting all the traffic on one side of the road using a concrete barrier wall. This minimized user delays while increasing mobility for the corridor.” The efficiencies gained resulted in a winning bid for Ajax, and their concrete overlay project was completed a full year ahead of schedule.

OPPOSITE PAGE: Michigan DOT US-10 project. The white fabric on the road in front of the

paver is a geotextile fabric (Propex) that was used as a separator layer on a 700-foot test

segment on the project. Photo courtesy of Ajax Paving. Photographer: Lukas Gordon.

ANOTHER APPROACH: Construction Manager/ General Contractor (CM/GC)

I-80 Pipe Rehabilitation in Utah

This CM/GC project was to repair a large

96” to 80” drainage pipe that is up to 30

feet deep in the ground in Utah’s Parley’s

Canyon (originally built in the 1950s) and

runs parallel with, and in several

sections underneath, the six-lane

highway in the canyon. The original

concept was to install a reinforced

concrete invert in the bottom of the

existing deteriorating pipe. Very limited

access over the 10,000 feet of pipe

made construction options very difficult

with only one main access besides the

entrance and exit. After careful

evaluation of this and several other

options, the team determined that with a

some temporary traffic striping and

barrier to create positive protection from

the work zone they could make enough

room to install a new drain system

off the edge of the existing roadway

and maintain all lanes of traffic during

construction. This approach eliminated

the hazards of working in dark, cold, and

confined spaces that presented several

risks. In the end, this approach allowed

for an entirely new system outside the

roadway and with much better access for

maintenance now and into the future.

“The advantage of a CM/GC project

is that it allows the owner, designer,

and contractor to work together to

determine the best design, means

and methods to complete the work,

and meet the owners goals. Risk is

identified, assessed and allocated

to the party best able to handle

the risk. Hence, providing the best

value to the stake holders,”

—Jeff Clyde, president, W.W. Clyde & Co.

TransportationBuilder


“In CM/GC, the contractor and his team work with the owner and engineer, providing innovative ideas to design details; solutions to constructability issues; scheduling, phasing and sequencing of work; and current market pricing,” said John Carlson, senior vice president at Sundt Construction, Inc. “Including the construction professional during the design process has the impact of substantially reducing costs and project delivery time, while improving overall project quality.”

Sundt and joint venture partner Slayden Construction Group, used CM/GC for the current Sellwood Bridge project in Portland, Ore., and won the job after presenting their innova-tive idea to lift and slide a 1,100-foot section of the bridge onto temporary piers to use as a detour bridge while the new bridge was constructed in its place—keeping traffic moving while shortening construction time and saving money.

Whether using CM/GC, D-B, or ATCs, each has pros and cons for different projects, but all allow builders to leverage their individual strengths into a more competitive proposal or bid and a more constructible project. The end result is a collaborative environment between the contractor and public agency where innovation can not only be supported, but thrive.

Hari Kalla is Federal Highway Administration director, center for

accelerating innovation.

“We would absolutely consider bidding ATCs again,” said Christine Poe, vice president at Ajax. “Keeping in mind that there are always parameters that job owners have as require-ments, but the tighter or more prescriptive those requirements are, the less room there is for innovation. If the owner has flexibility in some areas, and lets us have that flexibility, it can translate into a better ATC.”

Another innovative project delivery method being championed through EDC is Construction Manager/General Contractor (CM/GC). CM/GC is an integrated team approach that applies professional construction management during project planning, design and construction.

Where CM/GC differs from D-B, but is similar to D-B-B project delivery, is that the owner contracts separately for design and construction services, and therefore retains full control of the design. The significant difference between D-B-B and CM/GC, is that CM/GC brings the builder into the design process at a stage where definitive input can have a positive impact on the project. It allows risks to be easily identified and mitigated as well as continuously value engineered, and early components of construction can be fast-tracked. CM/GC encourages, allows, and requires, innovation during the design process. This method incentivizes innovation to a greater extent than any other delivery system.

A first-of-its kind, dynamic education program and internet-based information resource.

This program is aimed at helping private citizens, legislators, organizations and businesses successfully grow transportation infrastructure resources at the state and local levels through the legislative and ballot initiative processes.

Learn more: www.transportationinvestment.org


26th Annual ARTBA Public-Private Partnerships in Transportation Conference

SAVE THE DATEJuly 16 -18, 2014Washington Court Hotel 525 New Jersey Ave. N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001


Photo courtesy of Karl Nielsen, MTC.

Photo courtesy of Karl Nielsen, MTC.

Photo courtesy of Stantec.


W hile today’s sophisticated transportation

construction project innovations aren’t

rolled out from “Sesame Street,” an old

song from the classic children’s TV show ironically

sums up some of the latest trends of going “Over,

Under, Around and Through.”

This article, another in an ongoing “Transporta-

tion Builder” series on innovation, spotlights how

some recent projects from all across the country

addressed such obstacles in the effort to get peo-

ple and businesses where they need to go. It also

highlights how the use of unmanned aerial vehicle

technology might have applicability beyond deliv-

ering packages for Amazon or over the battlefields

of Afghanistan. What they all share in common

are knacks for imagination and initiative to keep

Americans and commerce rolling safely along

their respective paths to prosperity.

Over,

& Throughby J.J. McCoy

Photo courtesy of Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Photographer: Patrick Cashin.

Photo courtesy of Caltrans.

Photos courtesy of Michigan Tech Research Institute.


While a journey of one thousand miles begins with a first step, Bay Area motorists now enjoy a fourth tunnel for the reverse commute.

After three years of construction, the Caldecott Tunnel’s fourth bore opened to traffic last fall between Oakland and Contra Costa County, Calif. For nearly 50 years—ever since the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) opened the third bore in 1964—traffic in the middle tunnel was directed to accommodate the heaviest flow (a practice which could change several times a day), invariably creating a bottleneck as drivers heading the opposite direction funneled from four lanes into two, through a single tunnel. With the fourth bore designed to reduce congestion and travel times for traffic traveling in the off-peak direction, motorists in normal conditions are saving 15 to 20 minutes with traffic flowing freely.

The fourth bore is unfamiliar from its elders: the 3,348-foot tunnel is roomier (both wider and taller) and brighter. It features a 10-foot-wide shoulder along with walkways and safety passages, and is outfitted with modern ventilation, traffic lights, air and traffic monitoring systems, and electronic message boards. Nineteen bi-directional jet fans mounted to the ceiling are designed to maintain air quality in the tunnel, and to blow smoke away from motorists in the event of a fire. The emphasis on such state-of-the-art fire and life safety systems stems from an infamous 1982 fire, in which seven were killed through a chain reaction of accidents in the third bore.

The new tunnel’s incident-detection and response systems underwent extensive testing before opening, allowing monitors and first responders to prepare for threats including detecting and suppressing fires and other hazards while providing real-time information to help motorists safely exit in an emergency.

It opened ahead of schedule and about $3 million under its $420 million budget, with most of the funding ($180 million) from the 2009 federal stimulus program, Contra Costa taxpayers raising $125 million from transportation sales taxes, and the remainder supplied through bridge tolls and state and regional allocations.

Even so, such efficiencies didn’t come easily while tunneling nearly two-thirds of a mile through the hills. “The project was incredibly complex,” Caltrans spokeswoman Ivy Morrison said. “The toughest challenges were dealing with the geology... especially given the Bay Area and its tectonic movement. Though we’d done extensive core-sampling, because of the conditions you don’t know for certain until you’re in, how the ground will behave.”

The changing soil conditions forced the excavation crews to use different equipment along the way. Since pockets of methane presented potential for explosion, the excavator itself had to be retrofitted from diesel-power to electric in order to minimize sparking. Meanwhile, smoking, open flames, radios, cell phones, cameras and even remote-control keys for cars were prohibited in the tunnels.

Sequential excavation was performed using the “New Austrian Tunneling Method” (NATM), in which the initial support system is pillared to the ground immediately around it—which through the fourth bore might vary between

CALDECOTT TUNNEL FOURTH BOREPhotos courtesy of Karl Nielsen, MTC.


For about 80 years, locals, truckers and outdoors enthusiasts visiting the Plumas National Forest east of Chico, Calif., relied on a steel, deck truss bridge to cross over Spanish Creek bisected by State Route 70. But the 1932 Spanish Creek Bridge has now been replaced by a seven-span, box-girder bridge featuring an open spandrel arch. Though the new, 627-foot bridge is one of the longest conventionally reinforced concrete spans in California, its form is out-shown by its function. It has

a bicycle-friendly path with see-through railing, designed both to be aesthetically pleasing while also helpful in the removal of snow amid the northern Sierra Nevada.

Like a Hollywood beauty, though, the site itself was rather high-maintenance, as Caltrans and C.C. Myers, Inc., of Rancho Cordova, Calif., discovered. Located about 10 miles outside of Quincy (pop. 1,728), the bridge stands 160 feet above a rugged creek bed in an earthquake-prone forest. The new crossing had to meet both modern highway design standards and current seismic standards, while also accommodating interregional transportation needs (i.e., the new bridge extends the shoulder width to eight feet, and quadruples the weight-carrying capacity of its predecessor). Even so, it was the oldest element in its construction which proved to be the bridge’s most innovative aspect.

“Going in, I could tell that there was a challenge in the transportation of equipment and the supply of required energy involved for the project,” said David Clark, Caltrans’ resident engineer, in describing the project’s rural setting.

But Clark also realized that the runoff from the high Sierra meant the site had a ready, nonstop supply of cold water literally underfoot. Whereas typically Caltrans projects would ship in big chillers requiring lots of energy to cool the concrete pour, they decided instead to pump cold water from the creek through the 364-foot arches’ pour—resulting in both a savings of time and an estimated $200,000 compared to other methods.

Photos courtesy of Caltrans.

extremes of sandstone and shale, with various gradations in between.

“We’d learned a lot through the construction of the first three tunnels,” Morrison explained. “Another way we addressed the abruptly changing ground conditions was by probing, which is a way to assess the ground conditions ahead to 150 feet. [That] allowed us to know what we’d be getting into before excavating, and also to gradually and safely release the gases.”

Deploying a sequential excavation method meant that less structural support was required than in some other types of rock. Concrete was sprayed on as soon as the ground was excavated. “Any engineering project offers new challenges, but Jacobs Associates [a San Francisco-based engineering and construction management firm] has a wealth of experience worldwide, so those conversations [included] a lot of back and forth, which was very important,” Morrison said. “Caltrans is not typically in the practice of tunneling projects. We relied on their expertise, which really contributed to the success of the project.”

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There were other concerns: the lack of local infrastructure required factor-ing a five-hour detour into the schedule in order to haul supplies from one side to the other. Then the original concrete supplier proved unequal to the task. The road alignment’s design required finessed blasting mere feet from an existing rail-road tunnel; one of the abutments from the soil-nail design suffered some listing, and moved before they had to stabilize it with tie-backs before constructing the rest of the wall. Then, one of the mountains next to the existing bridge slipped, forcing an unexpected closure of the bridge while taking out power lines and knocking out electricity to Quincy for a time.

And then, of course, there were the fish.

“The creek is a temperature-sensitive environment,” Clark said. “I was able to use a lot of the available data to make sure that the construction wouldn’t affect the temperature [beyond 1 degree F].” The problems of maintaining the fishes’ pH balance were avoided because the water ran through [PVC] tubes, instead of concrete, which causes the pH in the water to rise becoming harmful to the fish when the cooling water returns to the stream.

“The way we went about it was unusual,” Clark noted. “I’m not aware of anyone having done it this way before. We had to do some preliminary research about any potential negative impacts, but it worked out. Despite the complications and in the push to get everything up, construction of the bridge itself didn’t skip a beat” from groundbreaking in June 2010 until open-ing the new bridge to traffic in July 2012.

“Contributing to the success of the project was the partnering relationship created with the project team,” said Bob Coupe, senior project manager with C.C. Myers. “The owner, contractor and subcontractors worked together as one toward a common goal. This facili-tated the project’s early completion, in excess of 100 working days, and helped to achieve the zero injury record that the project enjoyed.”

Photos courtesy of Michigan Tech Research Institute.


Drones, or more precisely unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have made recent headlines for everything from Afghanistan to border patrol to deliveries from Amazon.com. But in a first-of-its-kind application, the Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI) has developed a UAV system using high-resolution photography and 3D modeling to perform assessment of unpaved roads, which according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) account for nearly a third of the more than four million miles of road in our national transportation infrastructure.

Many of those 1.3 million miles of unpaved stretches— relied upon by rural residents to reach their homes, jobs and mail, farmers going to commodity markets, and kids to schools—fall to the responsibility of local governments and transportation agencies.

The cutting-edge technology of the Unsurfaced Road Conditions Assessment System (URCAS) provides local road managers with information needed for decision-making about maintenance and repairs. Using the URCAS portfolio of detailed information and imagery lets them analyze damage including potholes, washboarding (corrugation), crown damage and rut detection—and for a pittance of the cost otherwise. The technology translates to cost of analysis about $1 per mile, or a fraction of the rate even for the least expensive Pavement Surface Evaluation and Rating (PASER) method at approximately $8 per mile.

The ultimate goals of the research-and-development program, funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation, were to design, build, and test a prototype remote sensing-based unpaved road condition assessment system that can compete with manual methods, and to incorporate such measurements into a decision support system (DSS) to aid in managing an unpaved road network.

“We looked at a few different ways to do it, and a UAV system gives us the ability to rapidly gather the imagery needed to understand the road conditions and distresses. Managers were looking for a way to accurately assess the severity and amount of problems,” explained Program Director Colin Brooks of MTRI. “Most often we’re talking about gravel roads, so to be able to see those kinds of distresses, we’re looking at checking changes in the crown of the road. You need pretty

DRONE: UNSURFACED ROAD CONDITIONS ASSESSMENT SYSTEM

high-resolution data to do that. We fly a hexacopter at 80 to 100 feet high, so at a low altitude with a very high-resolution camera to make a 3D image of the road surface.”

All told, the system requires the UAV platform to collect the data—a hexacopter is both easy to operate and very stable in flight—using an off-the-shelf digital camera as its sensor for the two pieces of software that form the remote sensor processing system—one to collect that data, while the other detects the location and severity of the distresses.

Meeting the parameters of the industry-standard “Unpaved Road Condition Index” requires only about five minutes of flight time for gathering the sample segments. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is expected to finalize federal regulations in the next 18 months making it commercially practical throughout the country.

“Where we found the most interest is from administrators responsible for large amounts of unpaved roads, easy to see from the air and vital to the local infrastructure,” Brooks explained. “South Dakota has counties where nearly the entire road network is unpaved. This offers a more rapid and affordable way to be proactive rather than reactive. They can make this part of [their] standard assessment basis, either by acquiring the equipment to gather the data themselves, or by having it provided as a service. We plan to be flexible and provide either means.”

The remote-sensing platform has been verified in seven sites and counting in Michigan, Iowa and Nebraska, with testing this spring in South Dakota, giving a whole new meaning to being a flyover state.

“We are interested in this kind of opportunity to reach our work out to a larger audience,” said Brooks. “We are very excited in its capabilities and think that rapid UAV-based mapping of unpaved roads is a good place for this new technology to be applied in the nearer term. We also think that these methods could be applied to paved roads and bridges, especially as technology develops, prices drop, and people feel more comfortable with UAV-type infrastructure assessment tools.”


Celebrating the 110th anniversary of its first underground service, the New York City Subway is the busiest rapid transit rail system in the United States, and the daily, 24-hour lifeblood of the Big Apple. Yet it’s been more than 50 years since the subway system has seen an expansion as large as the current Second Avenue Subway project to extend the East Side’s G Line along Second Avenue while adding new stations to the city’s more than 420 already online.

When completed in December 2016, the $4.45 billion Phase I will open two miles (3.2 km) of tunnel served by three new stations. Controlled blasting operations began in November 2009 at 96th Street, with a final blast completing excavation in November 2013.

The goal of the project is to relieve overcrowding by as much as 13 percent (or 23,500 fewer weekday riders) along the Lexington Avenue line, improving travel for approximately 200,000 daily commuters by reducing delays and providing broader access to mass transit for travelers in Manhattan’s far East Side.

Overall, the expansion project will cost more than $17 billion and run 8.5 miles (13.7 km), from 125th Street to Hanover Square. All told, 16 new stations will be built to serve communities in Harlem, the Upper East Side, East Midtown, Gramercy Park, East Village, the Lower East Side, Chinatown and Lower Manhattan.

Sometimes referred to as “The Line That Time Forgot,” the Second Avenue Subway has been on the books since 1929, with occasional construction taking place despite interruptions in funding and emphasis throughout the city’s and nation’s history.

This most recent financially secure construction plan took hold with a 2007 tunneling contract awarded by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to the Schiavone/Shea/Skanska (S3) consortium, with Parsons Brinckerhoff serving as construction manager.

Phase I’s heavy civil/structural work included building demolitions, underpinning, station excavation, slurry wall construction, and concrete placement of the station invert slab of the main station, entrances, and ancillary facilities. Relocating utilities alone involved approximately 82,000 linear feet of Con Edison primary and secondary electric cables, some 4,500 linear feet of Verizon fiber optic cables, extensive relocation of low and high pressure Con Ed gas mains, and relocation or protection of existing water and sewer mains.

Geological and geographical realities in Manhattan led to the choice of cut and cover excavation, which entailed the transport and disposal of approximately 400,000 tons of soil and 40,000 tons of rock and concrete debris translating to about 22,000 truckload runs to various disposal facilities throughout New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Given the totality of such massively orchestrated efforts, it’s no spin for the MTA’s Michael Horodniceanu, president of its capital construction projects, to describe it as a monumental accomplishment. “It could not have been done without the hard work and dedication of a very motivated team,” Horodniceanu said.

SECOND AVENUE SUBWAYPhoto courtesy of Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Photographer: Patrick Cashin.


When completed in June 2015, the Grassy Creek Bridge will be Virginia’s tallest, with a vertical clearance of 250 feet above the creek in a rural project area with more than 400 feet of vertical elevation differential overall.

Begun in August 2009, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT)’s Route 460 Connector Phase I design-build project brought together the talents of Stantec (as prime designer), Jansen Spaans Engineering (for bridge design) and Bizzack Construction (as prime contractor) with CJ Mahan Construction Co. and RS&H CS. Their Grassy Creek Bridge features twin 1,700-foot-long, cast-in-place segmental bridges, each with a deck width of 43-feet, carrying two lanes of traffic in both directions. Ultimately, it will link federally designated corridors of Virginia and Kentucky in the Appalachian Development Highway System.

The locale presented all kinds of challenges, be it the geog-raphy and geology, electrical power or manpower all factoring into the overall $105 million budget. The roadway and bridge approaches needed plenty of both conventional and shape-charge blasting due to the site’s soil and rock conditions.

Bridge foundations also had to compensate for the complicated and unstable terrain, which influenced much of the bridge’s design and construction. Limited housing options meant that most of the highly-specialized management and labor talent had to commute from neighboring West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio.

Not only was specialized equipment needed for the cast-in-place segmental construction process, blasting for site preparation, post-tensioning and grouting of steel tendons, but the required power demanded an adept solution too. The team devised and deployed a novel combination of tower cranes to

J.J. McCoy, a former staff writer for the “Washington Post,” is a

Washington-based freelance journalist who often covers transportation

and technology: [email protected].

Editor’s Note: Future innovation stories will focus on airport and port construction projects.

string the power over the top of what otherwise would have required preliminary clearing and construction.

Thus, work proceeded from both of the 250-foot pier columns in a cantilevered construction operation with four spots working simultaneously and sufficiently to have all phases of construction going, be it advancing traveler forms, tying reinforcing bars, casting concrete and then curing it—“the full life cycle of concrete construction happening concurrently,” as Tony Hunley of Stantec’s lead design team described it. All of it is captured in what’s another unusual feature for the region—an onsite, time-lapse camera recording images every 10 minutes to track the progress of the project from start to finish via VDOT’s website, at www.VirginiaDOT.org/460connector.

As described, these projects proceed in each of their manners and in all of their methods to solve vitally pressing and respec-tively challenging transportation problems. Their accomplish-ments have been realized in new ways once unimaginable. Whether in terms of engineering, economics or politics, they’ve prevailed through time-proven principles of ideas, designs, dedication and drive. And as anyone from Sesame Street or Main Street might tell them on Wall Street, those are the principles to carry you over, under, around and through.


Photo courtesy of Stantec.


TRANSPORTATION DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION

INNOVATIONEarlier this year, “TB” editorial staff asked ARTBA members to share thier innovation success stories with our readers. On the following pages, we offer you a sampling of responses we received.

Veterans Memorial BridgeLocation: Martin County, Florida

Cost: $68 Million

Completion Date: January 2014

Owner: Florida Department of Transportation

Partners: RS&H and Archer Western

Contact: Ben Lehr, [email protected], 904.256.2138

The Veterans Memorial Bridge, one of the largest design-build projects initiated by the Florida Department of Transportation in 2009,

includes two miles of CR 714 on new alignment, two intersection reconstructions, and a new 3,100-foot, high-level concrete bridge. An

important connection between Florida’s Turnpike and US 1/SR 5, the bridge reduces travel times while improving capacity, safety, and

emergency evacuation. The structure is the first new bridge crossing of the Intracoastal Waterway in south Florida in over 20 years and

was built within a highly sensitive environmental corridor that traverses a protected mangrove island.

The approach spans and four-span, main unit utilize Florida I-beams, the first major use of Florida I-beams in the state. This innova-

tion resulted in two beam line savings over design with conventional bulb-T beams. A significant challenge was construction of the

250-foot span over the environmentally-sensitive island without crane access. Beam segments were delivered via trestle and loaded on a

launching truss. The segments were rolled over the island on the truss where they were picked up by an overhead lifting truss and shifted

into position.

Facing runoff challenges due to topography, the design team successfully maintained required stormwater treatment within the

project right-of-way without affecting area residents. The roadway drainage and treatment is carried out through the use of flumes and

linear swales, which eliminated costly closed drainage system elements and numerous utility impacts. It also allowed for the creation of

linear parks along the corridor.



I-79 Meadow Lands Interchange ProjectLocation: Washington County, Pennsylvania

Cost: $23 million

Completion Date: July 2013

Owner: Pennsylvania Department of Transportation

Designer: Gannett Fleming, Inc.

Contractor: Swank Associated Companies

The I-79 Meadow Lands Interchange serves a growing area where

traffic and development were surpassing the capabilities of the

50-year-old, partial interchange. To address the region’s needs,

design and construction reconfigured the interchange to a

full-access crossing point. Using a split diamond configuration,

existing ramps were reconstructed and a new northbound

entrance, southbound exit ramps, and connector roadways were

built. Four new signalized intersections were added.

The project challenges included avoiding impacts to Chartiers

Creek and relocating more than 800 feet of a creek tributary. A key

element to avoiding impacts to the creek was the construction of a 530-foot-long, concrete retaining wall. The tributary relocation

involved coordination with environmental agencies and included mitigation features such as a meandering low flow channel, mud sills,

boulders, and plantings. Other challenges included relocating a side road, avoiding an archaeological site, avoiding impact to a golf

course, closing off an old mine pond to re-establish low flow back into the tributary, mitigating noise with a noise barrier, the grouting

of mine voids, and rehabilitating the bridge over Chartiers Creek.

Located at Exit 40 of I-79, the project maintained two lanes of traffic on I-79 in each direction during construction.

Completion of the interchange project provided full access, simplified navigation, reduced through traffic, improved access to

commercial and industrial facilities, and improved intersection operation in a nearby community.


MoPac Improvement ProjectLocation: Austin, Texas

Cost: $136.6 million

Completion Date: 2015

Owner: Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority

Partners: Texas Department of Transportation, City of Austin, Capital

Metro, and the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization

Contact: Project Manager Joseph Schroeder,

[email protected]. 1.512.270.5014

CH2M HILL’s Alternative Technical Concept (ATC) context

sensitive design adjusted the horizontal and vertical alignment of

the southbound express lane exit ramp to 5th and Cesar Chavez

Streets and the main lane exit to 5th and Cesar Chavez Streets. This

proposed concept converted the express lane exit ramp from a

5-span overcrossing to a simple undercrossing passing below the

MoPac main lanes.

Benefits:

1. Converting the exit ramp from an overcrossing to an

undercrossing allows for a shorter structure that can be

constructed more quickly and outside of traffic, reducing

impacts to motorists, promoting construction efficiencies,

and resulting in lower overall costs.

2. This change reduces the quantity of retaining walls and

import fill material by eliminating the bridge approach fill

sections.

3. Changing the vertical alignment eliminates the negative

visual impact of an overpass, improving the aesthetics of the

interchange while reducing road noise in the vicinity and

mitigating environmental impacts to area residents, busi-

nesses, bicyclists, and pedestrians.

4. The ATC improves safety and convenience for travelers and

workers alike by separating construction operations from

live traffic, without affecting mobility through the work

zone.

The context sensitive design provides a cost saving and a better

quality facility to the Mobility Authority. The ATC, which was also

applied to the northbound express lane for a combined savings of

$5 million, improves safety, schedule, and operational efficiencies,

while reducing motorist inconvenience, enhancing aesthetics, and

delivering environmental benefits.

Transfer Sweeper Speeds Mill and Fill ProjectLocation: I-35 near Davis, Oklahoma

Partners: Broce Broom & Silver Star Construction

Contact: Kimberly Brown, [email protected], 310.787.1940

When Silver Star Construction, a Moore, Okla.-based road repair

contractor, began a 6.2-mile, three and four-lane divided highway,

mill and fill project on I-35 over a mountain near Davis,

Oklahoma, the deadline for the job was six weeks.

To accelerate project completion, keep traffic flowing and

operators, equipment and debris out of open traffic lanes on the

I-35 project, Silver Star chose to use an efficient sweep and

loading team. The company chose two model 350 broom vehicles

with blade and gutter attachments, followed by an MK-1 transfer

sweeper, by Broce Broom, a Norman, Okla.-based

innovator of construction sweeping technology.

Unlike typical road sweepers that must travel to dump their

milling debris before cleaning again, the transfer sweeper drives

behind a dump truck and integrates a large brush that continually

sweeps debris to its conveyor, which dumps into the truck bed.

“We found a transfer sweeper can fill a 10-cubic yard truck with

milling debris in under 15 minutes,” says Jack Shannon, Silver Star

superintendent. “It’s up to three times as fast at sweeping up mill-

ing debris and loading it into the truck as our previous skid steers

and boxblade. After one pass of the transfer sweeper going up the

middle, our roadway was ready for tack.”

According to Shannon, the transfer sweeper can keep up with

the milling machine, and the only time it has to stop is to swap out

a loaded truck for an empty one.

24 TransportationBuilder


Located in Broward County, Fla., the I-595 Corridor Roadway Improvements project entails median widening to add three reversible managed lanes, reconstruction of the existing six-lane mainline and two-lane frontage roads, and improvements to four major interchanges. At the interchange of I-595 with University Drive, the original plan was to remove both flyover ramps. Dragados USA proposed changes that allowed keeping one flyover and salvaging most of the five-span, 962-ft. Ramp N.

Ramp N modified design concept was recognized by Florida Department of Transportation’s (FDOT) Project Manager Paul Lampley as one of the project’s biggest challenges, but one that significantly minimized traffic disruptions. Stringent traffic restrictions required completion and reopening in less than 120 days. Dragados jacked up the 2,360 tons of Ramp N on

July 14, 2012. Twenty-four hydraulic jacks with an Enerpac ESS Synchronous Lift System and four hydraulic jacks per pier lifted the flyover 18 inches in 18 steps of one inch. After the jacking, Dragados completed the demolition, retrofit and upgrade of all bridge components, and reconstruction of the southern end of the flyover in 116 days, reopening Ramp N to traffic on November 7, 2012.

Value engineering and innovation are critical to realize the possibilities offered by alternative procurement. Extending the life of existing assets, such as the I-595 University Drive structure, provided an overall project savings of $200 M on the I-595 P3 project. The project will be completed by the end of March 2014, in time and on budget.

I-595 P3 ProjectLocation: Davie (Broward County), Florida

Cost: (Entire P3 Project/Design-Build Project) $1.7 billion/1.2 billion

Completion Date: March 2014

Owner: District Four, Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT)

Partners: FDOT, Dragados USA (Dragados), ACS Infrastructure Development (ACS ID), AECOM, Finley Engineering and VSL.


Old entry point.


Safety Equipment—”Personnel & Material Hoist System”Location: Various locations in Eastern U.S.

Cost: $250,000

Completion Date: Field implementation

January 2014

Team: Skyman USA and Seaboard/McKinney

Contact: Mark R. Madgett, P.E., Seaboard

Foundations, Inc., mrmadgett@seaboardfounda-

tions.com, 423.323.2100.

Specialty contractors are often faced with

controlling trade-specific hazards where

no Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

is commercially available to protect their

employees. In years past, individual groups

were left to develop means, methods, and

equipment that, while robust, often lacked

the critical overview by safety and

engineering professionals.

Case in point—down-hole entry by

NON-man-rated means (i.e., lowered

in bosun’s chairs via material-only rated

winches or suspended from cranes). Fast

forward to today—the use of non-engi-

neered, field constructed safety equipment

is no longer acceptable to our culture of

safety. But the problem still exists…no

commercially available equipment.

In response to the need for a fully

engineered, man-rated hoist system, the

corporate safety and construction team

of Seaboard/McKinney teamed up with

SkyMan to solve this problem. Over two

years, this team worked together to take

all aspects of this new personnel/material

hoist system from the drawing board to the

field. Since field implementation in

January 2014, the use of this system has

been a huge success. Even seasoned

personnel are embracing the change in

a field where change is difficult. To date,

these hoists have been used to perform

hundreds of confined space entries across

the Eastern U.S. and have performed

perfectly.

Virginia Connected Vehicle TestbedLocation: Merrifield, Virginia

Cost: $6 million

Completion Date: 2014

Owner: Virginia Department of Transportation

Partners: Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, Virginia Center for Trasportation Innovation &

Research, University of Virginia, and Morgan State University

Contact: Mindy Buchanan-King, VTTI strategic communications manager,

[email protected], 540.231.1548

The Virginia Connected Test Bed initiative is a research project that equips vehicles with connected wireless technology, enabling them to “talk” to each other via wireless sensors installed on vehicles and along highway infrastructure. The goal is to use connected-vehicle and infrastructure technologies to improve safety, state of good repair, economic competitiveness, livable communities, and environmental sustainability.

Construction of the testbed began in spring and summer of 2012 with a site visit and initial equipment installation and is located in Fairfax County in northern Virginia along I-66 and on the parallel Routes 29 and 50; the latter roadways are intended for dynamic alternate route research. The tesbed was designed to utilize a large fleet of highly instrumented vehicles, including cars, motorcycles, a motor coach and a semi-truck. There are 43 roadside equipment locations with two mobile spares and an expansion planned for 2014. These initial 43 locations feature four major merge/diverge locations from the north, south, and west; two metro stations/public transport and commuter routes; high occupancy toll lanes, a large county hospital; a fire station; multiple schools; pedestrian trails; mixed-use commercial/residential areas; and major roadway construction.

Key elements of this test bed are strong partnerships with local agencies, including law enforcement and transit providers, particularly the Fairfax County Transit Authority. This test bed location was selected because it has transportation system deficiencies: congestion, high crash rates, air quality non-attainment. These transportation system deficiencies can be effectively addressed by connected-vehicle technologies that include a high level of multimodal interactions. It provides a variety of roadway types, topography and driver types to exercise a connected-vehicle system across a range of environments, yet provides opportunities for containment such that a high number of equipped vehicle interactions will occur.

Mar.-Apr. 2014


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I Want You to Want Me: Hiring Young Talent in the Construction Industry by Brian Binke & Katie Hammond

Brian Binke is The Birmingham Group president

& CEO. Katie Hammond is The Birmingham

group research & marketing associate:

[email protected]

The transportation construction workforce is aging at an alarming

rate. Organizations in your marketplace are committed to acquiring top young talent to spur growth as we head into a bullish economy. The question becomes how do you make them want you back? Young professionals in the construc-tion industry are highly-educated and more in demand than ever. In today’s candidate-driven market, prospective hires want and have come to expect to be courted in a fashion similar to athletes being recruited by top sports teams.

A company may offer the best training, unparalleled benefits, or financial stability, however, unless candidates are fully able to understand the opportunity, it’s immaterial. For example, candidates are looking for: What makes your company special? What makes your firm different than the competition? Does your company offer the long-term growth they are seeking?

The best resource to attract young pro-fessionals is already at your disposal in the form of current employees. By gain-ing a full understanding of what your young employees like and dislike about your company, you will be armed with a knowledge of organizational strengths and deficiencies from the vantage point of the people you are looking to hire.

Today’s workplace culture is no longer a climate where companies can sit back and wait idly for top talent to come to them. Progressive companies in your space are proactively recruiting these individuals at a breakneck pace.

Additionally, it is of great importance to reevaluate the qualifications your firm looks for in new hires to align yourself with this fluid, ever-changing market. When competing to hire from such a small pool of candidates, your company is best served by redefining and expanding your talent pool, looking at those with alternative backgrounds can bring renewed innovation and passion to your company. Rather than focusing on traditional metrics in the construction industry such as experience, previous companies worked for and projects completed, progressive companies are at-tracted to candidates with qualities such as resourcefulness, adaptability, drive and teachability. It is a losing battle to try to inspire drive and motivation in those who don’t already have it. To avoid mak-ing bad hires, companies must have an understanding of what attracts top talent.

Top candidates will be interviewing with multiple firms and often times receive multiple offers. There are several ways to make your firm stand out during the interview process. Companies are unable to hire great candidates for a variety of reasons including: time lag in the interview process; inconsistencies and mixed messages from hiring managers; and lack of understanding regarding the long-term opportunity.

Upon identifying the right candidate, it’s imperative to place your company in the best possible position to hire these individuals in a highly comple-tive marketplace. It’s vital to be concise, organized and responsive throughout the interview process. If candidates ask multiple people within your organiza-tion similar questions about the position, they must receive a consistent response from each hiring authority they speak to. If the interview coordinator is unrespon-sive, unreliable or uncommunicative,

candidates will have no choice but to assume this behavior is reflective of your organization as a whole.

Interviews are your opportunity to set yourself apart from your competi-tion. Traditionally, an interview consists of only upper management creating an overly formal setting where interviewers often times give the answers they believe their interviewer is looking to hear, rather than having a substantive dialogue about the organization and the oppor-tunity. In response, the most progressive of your competitors have redefined the traditional hiring process by including current employees who are contempo-raries of your desired candidates. Cur-rent employees will be better equipped to explain what the position entails from first-hand experience, while simultane-ously providing a peer’s perspective on the company. Moreover, candidates are often times more comfortable conversing with peers who can provide increased fa-miliarity and knowledge of your company.

In the current sink or swim transportation construction market, a major industry change is underway in which successful, growing companies have redefined the hiring process, moving away from the traditional, stagnate model employed by their predecessors. This has resulted in unprecedented growth for aggressive companies that have embraced the changes necessary to attract and cater to the next generation of construction professionals who are willing and able to take your company to the next level.


That’s why Corman Construction relies on the National Work Zone Safety Information Clearinghouse to ensure employee and motorist safety and health in road construction zones.

The world’s largest cyber library of educational webinars, best practices, laws and regulations, statistics, training information and more is available at www.workzonesafety.org.

Highway contractor Bill Cox wants all his employees on the road to safety.

Use It…Save Lives!

Information provided by the National Work Zone Safety Information Clearinghouse, award #DTFH61-06-H-00015,

does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, (FHWA) or the American Road &

Transportation Builders Association-Transportation Development Foundation. References to specific products and

services do not imply endorsement by the Clearinghouse or FHWA.


Victory for Transportation by Nick Goldstein

Nick Goldstein is ARTBA vice president of

environmental & regulatory affairs:

[email protected].

There’s an old saying that “patience pays off.” That theory proved true

earlier this year, when, after many years of review and comments, the U.S. En-vironmental Protection Agency (EPA) dropped a misguided proposal to apply a single, “one size fits all” standard to stormwater runoff on construction sites.

EPA had thought that by instituting a uniform, numeric standard for the whole country, it would be able to better control stormwater runoff. What they did not consider, and ARTBA repeatedly pointed out, is that different areas of the country have very different stormwater situations. Put more simply, stormwater is more of a problem in areas prone to rain. A project in Seattle—where it can rain six months out of the year—is going to have a completely different stormwater sce-nario than a project in the arid southwest (Arizona or New Mexico, for example). To think that one standard could apply equally to both places defied logic.

But, it took more than patience to get to this outcome. In 2007, ARTBA filed its first official comments to EPA on storm-water issues, arguing that builders and planners needed flexibility for storm-water permits to account for the vastly different climate and weather condi-tions under which projects across the 50

sates are built. Later, ARTBA explained to EPA that the ap-plication of a single, uniform standard would not come cheap—adding up to $1 mil-lion in some cases to project costs. With state departments of transportation constantly trying to stretch every trans-portation dollar as far as it can go, adding unnecessary costs would make delivering badly-needed infrastructure improvements even more challenging.

A better approach, ARTBA argued, is to allow states to continue to use “best management practices,” which have been developed to meet the specific stormwater needs for each state. Thus, states with more rainfall would be able to develop different, and more appropriate, strategies than states with less rainfall.

Seven years and nearly a dozen sets of comments later, the agency finally decided to back off their plan, handing the transportation construction industry a long overdue victory.

What should be examined in addition to the stormwater victory itself, is the manner in which it was achieved. Over the course of seven years, ARTBA fought on the transportation construction industry’s behalf through all channels possible. In addition to keeping pressure on EPA through the regulatory comment process, ARTBA members participated in small business workgroups and shared their perspectives on the proposed rule’s real-world impacts in-person before the agency’s representatives. In fact, at the time the plan was first proposed, ARTBA members were the only transportation representatives participating in EPA’s outreach efforts.

The regulatory process is, by nature, less than speedy. In fact, it is very, very

slow, often times painfully so. To achieve regulatory victories like these takes time, persistence and patience.

There are a variety of different regula-tory issues ARTBA has been engaged in for many years. We file an average of 25 sets of regulatory comments per year. Clean Air Act reform, for example, is something the association has been working on for over a decade. On the non-environmental front, the associa-tion has been involved in trying to bring positive changes in the way the Disad-vantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program is administered through com-ments to the United States Department of Transportation (DOT).

ARTBA is also heavily involved in the regulatory efforts behind implantation of the new surface transportation law MAP-21. Specifically, there are 42 major regulatory actions, nearly 100 mandates and almost 60 additional rulemakings that DOT must promulgate. To date, only a small fraction, about 16 percent, have been completed. It’s safe to say ARTBA will be providing regulatory comments on MAP-21-related issues well into the debate about the next surface transportation reauthorization bill. No matter how long it takes, though, ARTBA will see MAP-21 through until it is fully put into law.

The association’s regulatory advocacy efforts involve not only identifying issues of concern to the industry, but following those issues through to an acceptable outcome, no matter how long the process takes. While the time involved can sometimes be staggering, a positive outcome for the industry is always worth the effort.

Mar.-Apr. 201432 TransportationBuilder Mar.-Apr. 201432 TransportationBuilder


AEM corner

Telematics:

Innovation you

can apply to the

bottom line

Have you ever wished you knew where every machine in your fleet is with a glance at the computer screen? Or would you like to know the idle time of every piece in your fleet, and how you might save money with improved fuel efficiency? How about an easier way to track and schedule maintenance? With telematics, all that is possible, and that’s just the beginning.

While many fleet managers already benefit from information made avail-able by telematics, there are others for whom this technology remains a bit of a mystery. Telematics can be understood as telecommunication technology and computer programs collaborating to provide information about how the machines in the fleet are running, where they are, when they need maintenance, etc. It’s easy to see how such information can help save money. Telematics combines GPS technology and machine communication that allows data analysis.

Much of this capability has been around since the late 1990s. Nevertheless, advances are still being made on behalf of end users to improve and standardize the information they receive, especially for mixed fleets.

The telematics advantage is seen on the bottom line. Savings from using telematics have been significant for contractors and fleet managers who effectively use the technology, according to Al Cervero, vice president, construc-tion, mining & utility for AEM. He cited as an example a contractor operating on another continent using telematics data, that saved $33,000 a month in tires alone.

“With this data available daily, you can obtain efficiencies that really impact the profit margin,” Cervero said. “Fleet managers benefit from the ability to forecast maintenance and the need for replacement parts, and believe it or not, the biggest savings is in idle time. However, other department can use data too, for instance, load capacities for operations and billing cycles for finance departments.”

“Idle time data allows fleet managers to focus on many things that improve the company’s bottom line and its relationship with regulators, and that’s everywhere in the U.S., not just in states where regulations limit idle time,” Cervero added. “If you’re compliant, the data provides the proof.”

Mixed fleets have challenges in standardizing data, and to overcome the different ways manufacturers record data and make it available to end-users, a global contingent of heavy equipment manufacturers, fleet managers and two leading industry associations have agreed on a defined set of asset data that, when communicated remotely via telematics, can be accessed and downloaded by the end user of the equipment.

At the recent CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2014 international exposition in early March in Las Vegas, AEM and the Association of Equipment Management Professionals (AEMP) explained to media, manufacturers and fleet managers

AEM provides trade and business development services for companies that manufacture equip-ment, products and services used world-wide in the agricultural, construction, forestry, mining and utility sectors. AEM is headquartered in Mil-waukee, Wisconsin, with offices in the capitals of Washington, D.C., Ottawa, and Beijing.

that 19 data points will be part of a stan-dard being developed and maintained by the two associations and their member-ships. The new standard will define a format that enables OEMs to deliver fault code information as part of the data feed.

Many fleets now make use of the most simplified telematics data and this new, expanded standard will allow managers to go far beyond the basics. The original telematics data standard developed by AEMP will now be superseded by this new, wider industry standard. Telematics data related to crane operations are excluded from the agreement and possibly other niche products, but will follow shortly.

End users will be able to access the data from their OEM via an Application Program Interface (API) server to a data sharing standard. The data sharing standard will include standardized server to server communication protocols for the transfer of telematics information in mixed equipment fleets making it possible for the end user to retrieve the data from the OEM.

These protocols will allow end-users to employ their own business software to collect and analyze asset data from mixed equipment fleets without the need for customization work across multiple telematics provider applications.

For more information, contact Rich Jefferson at [email protected] or 414-298-4122.


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CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT, PRODUCTS & SERVICES

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DAILY WEBINARS

Federal Issues Program & Transportation Construction Coalition Fly-InJUNE 9-11, WASHINGTON, D.C.

ARTBA Foundation 19th Annual Young Executive Development ProgramJUNE 9-12, WASHINGTON, D.C.

6th Annual Transportation Construction Law & Regulatory ForumJUNE 11, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Transportation Investment Advocacy Center EventJULY 16, WASHINGTON, D.C.

26th Annual Public-Private Partnerships in Transportation Conference JULY 16-18, WASHINGTON, D.C.

ARTBA National ConventionSEPTEMBER 7-9, RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CALIF.

Dr. J. Don Brock TransOvation™ Workshop & Awards Program TBD

MEETINGS & EVENTS

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ROAD AND MINERAL TECHNOLOGIES

Mar/April TB 2014

Engineering

Transcript of Mar/April TB 2014