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September 1, 2012 • Vol. IXX • No. 18 • 470 Maryland Drive • Ft. Washington, PA 19034 • 215-885-2900 • Toll Free 800-523-2200 • Fax 215-885-2910 • www.constructionequipmentguide.com
Inside
Fed Judge Clears Way for Lawsuit Challenging Bridges
West Side’s Indy Golf Event a Success...14
The $3.8 million project on Highway 22 began on June 4 and includes milling of the existing pavement and placing bituminous pavement from the Heart River Bridge, on the south end of the city, north to 14th Street West. Murphy Tractor Hosts Golf Scramble...22
Oil Boom Creates Need to Improve Several Roads By Dorinda Anderson CEG CORRESPONDENT
Ale x Lyon & So n Hol ds Sal e in Raci ne.. .82
Table of Contents ........4 Snow Section ........33-37 Off-Road Trucks Section ..............................39-45 Paving Section ......49-61 Business Calendar ......76 Auction Section ....81-91 Advertisers Index ......90
An unexpected oil boom that has tripled production in five years in western North Dakota has caused an influx of truck traffic, creating excessive stress on roads and unsafe traffic conditions. Drilling is taking place in the Bakken Formation, a 360-million-year-old shale bed that is 2 mi. underground, which geologists believe holds a 15,000 square-mile region of oil in North Dakota alone. A study by the North Dakota State University’s Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, states that more than 20,000 new oil wells could be drilled in western North Dakota in the next 20 years. For each well just over 2,000 see ROADS page 48
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) A federal judge has allowed a lawsuit to go forward challenging whether all federal regulations were properly addressed for the $2.6 billion Ohio River Bridges Project. U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II on Aug. 8 wrote that the litigation’s progress shouldn’t delay any contractual or construction activities. The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the environmental group River Fields sued in 2009. The groups questioned whether federal environmental, historic preservation and other regulations had been properly followed for the project. Kentucky Transportation Cabinet spokesman Chuck Wolfe told The Courier-Journal that the cabinet expects to award a construction contract for the downtown Louisville section on Dec. 15. The project will include construction of new bridges across the Ohio River between Louisville and Jeffersonville, Ind., and between Prospect, Ky., and Utica, Ind. Heyburn issued a stay halting the litigation in the spring because so many parts of the project were unsettled. Federal highway officials have signed off on the scaled-back bridges plan that allows Kentucky and Indiana to charge drivers who use the Kennedy Bridge and two new spans. The exact tolls have not been decided, however. Wolfe said some of the planned demolition that had been on hold will now proceed. Robert Griffith, a River Fields spokesman, said lifting of the stay means that “the parties are now going to brief the case in the normal way.’’ The eastern bridge is scheduled to be finished in 2017, with the new downtown span following a year later.
Materials Prices Post Rare Year-Over-Year Dip The cost of key construction materials dropped for the third consecutive month in July, pushing down year-over-year prices for the first time since 2009, according to an analysis of producer price index figures released Aug. 14 by the Associated General Contractors of America.
However, association officials warned that recent spikes in diesel fuel and steel prices may drive up the cost of construction again, and they urged lawmakers to invest in needed infrastructure projects promptly while prices remain low. “This price decline may be the last, given the
large jumps in diesel fuel and steel prices that have occurred or been announced since the Labor Department collected this producer price data in mid-July,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist. “If economic growth see PRICES page 64