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Midwest Edition
September 7 2019 Vol. XX • No. 18
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Inside
$2B Light Rail Expansion Benefits Twin Cities By Eric Olson CEG CORRESPONDENT
MDOT’s $90M I-696 Reconstruction...10
Annual Steak Fry Draws Largest Crowd Ever...24
Felling’s Trailer for a Cause Auction...100
Table of Contents ................4 Snow & Ice Section ......33-37 Business Calendar ............50 Underground Utility, Trenchers & Trench Boxes Section ..........................56-65 Paving Section..............75-90 Auction Section..........94-103 Advertisers Index ............102
Despite not being ready until 2023, the people of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area have something worth looking forward to. That’s when the newest light-rail line in Minnesota will be completed, designed to give riders in the southwest suburbs an easier, quicker and alternative way to reach the Twin Cities. Though the rail line may be light, it’s safe to say the project is simply massive. Last November saw the groundbreaking for the 14.5-mile-long Metro Green Line Extension, better known as the Southwest LRT, but the first real heavy construction began in May after the Minnesota winter passed. The light rail service will run between Minneapolis and head southwest toward the towns of St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Minnetonka, Edina and Eden Prairie. The project has an estimated price tag, when finished, of $2.003 billion — funded by a combination
Southwest Station in Eden Prairie, on the southern end of the Green Line Extension. The station has only recently opened for bus service, with the rail line to come at a later date.
of federal, county, state and local resources. Included in the contract is the building of 16 new stations along the route, along with 29 new bridges, the modification of seven existing bridges, the construction of six pedestrian tunnels, two cut-
and-cover LRT tunnels, 117 retaining walls and the placement of 153,000 feet of track. Officials expect the effort will create 7,500 construction jobs. The SWLRT alignment will be installed through eight miles of a
freight-rail corridor and 6.5 miles of greenfield land, which includes wetlands, undulating topography and roadways. The scale and cost of the project makes it the largest in Minnesota see RAIL page 20
Team Looks to Turn CO2 Into Pre-Fab Concrete By Lori Lovely CEG CORRESPONDENT
Carbon Upcycling UCLA/CO2 Concrete, one of 10 teams competing in the final round of the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, is hoping to
win $7.5 million for demonstrating the most practical technology for turning carbon dioxide emissions into a useful end product. Whoever wins the competition in 2020, the world has already won, due to the team’s innovative solution to the excesses of CO2 produced by power
plants and other heavy industry plants. The UCLA team plans to turn carbon dioxide from flue gas — the exhaust gases from a coal-burning power plant — into pre-fabricated concrete blocks called “CO2Concrete,” a trademarked name. The goal is to produce up to 10 tons of the product each day. The blocks will The UCLA team plans to then be used in demonstraturn carbon dioxide tion construction projects. from flue gas — the This innovative process exhaust gases from a takes CO2 from coal-burncoal-burning power ing power plants and heavy plant — into pre-fabriindustry and converts the cated concrete blocks waste gas into pre-cast called “CO2Concrete.” see CONCRETE page 16