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March 8, 2014 • Vol. IX • No. 5 • 470 Maryland Drive • Ft. Washington, PA 19034 • 215/885-2900 • Toll Free 800-523-2200 • Fax 215/885-2910
Inside
Fluor photo
Allmand Celebrates 75th Anni versary...15
Super Crane Sails Through Panama Canal By Lori Lovely CEG CORRESPONDENT
Yoder & Frey Holds 40th Kissimmee A uction...20
LA Workers Break Guinness Record...22
Table of Contents ................4 Attachment & Parts Section ......................................14-17 Truck & Trailer Section ........ ......................................25-27 Recycling Section ........33-42 Business Calendar ............45 Auction Section ............45-55 Advertisers Index ..............54
The “I Lift NY” super crane is escorted under the Bridge of the Americas, the Pacific approach to the Panama Canal, in Balboa.
Officially opened in 1914, the 48-mi. long Panama Canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans via the Caribbean Sea by cutting through the Isthmus of Panama has greatly reduced travel time for ships. Considered one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, the 100-year-old shortcut also provides safer passage by allowing ships to avoid the hazardous Cape Horn route around the southernmost tip of South America. Each year, approximately
14,000 cargo and cruise ships pass through the Panama Canal, but recently, one unusual shipment passed through the historic locks. The “Left Coast Lifter,” the world’s largest floating crane, The “I Lift NY” in the New York Harbor near Manhattan.
passed through the Central American canal in January, on its way from its home near San Francisco to the Hudson River in New York, where it will be used to dismantle the deteriorating Tappan Zee Constructors LLC photo
Tappan Zee Bridge and construct a replacement. Tappan Zee Bridge Twenty-five miles north of Midtown Manhattan, the Governor Malcolm Wilson Tappan Zee Bridge, sometimes called The Tap, is a cantilever bridge across the widest point of the Hudson River in New York. Built in 1955, the 3.1-mi. (4.9 km) bridge accommodates 140,000 to 170,000 vehicles daily, resulting in congestion during peak hours. Despite a movable center barrier to enhance traffic flow, delays are see CRANE page 32
ARTBA: Highway Trust Fund Fix Will Be Painful Fixing the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) without generating any new revenue would require the equivalent of Congress passing and the president signing a 2013-level Murray-Ryan budget deal every year just to maintain current highway and transit program investment levels, American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) President Pete Ruane told a Senate panel Feb. 12. According to a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, the HTF will be unable to support any investments in new projects come September, and will require, on average, $16.3 billion annually just to preserve the current transportation program. By comparison, over a two-
year period, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 — the Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) budget deal — reallocates resources to increase the non-defense discretionary spending cap by an average (ironically) of $16 billion per year. Calling that process a “painful scenario,” Ruane warned the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee that if the HTF shortfall is not addressed, more than 12,000 highway, bridge and safety capital projects across the nation — on the routes most important to the U.S. economy — could be lost. Ruane noted that trucks carry freight worth
more than $11 trillion over the nation’s roads and bridges every year, and nearly 75 percent of that travel takes place on the federal-aid system. “Without that federal investment in these roads, trucking mobility and economic productivity are at risk,” he said. Ruane explained ARTBA’s economics team set about to research how the public’s federal gas tax dollars were put to use in 2012. Unfortunately, it took a Freedom of Information Act request and sophisticated computer analysis of literally millions of data points to get answers. Among the highlights he said the public see HTF page 16