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“The Nation’s Best Read Construction Newspaper… Founded 1957.” August 11, 2012 • Vol. VIII • No. 16 • 470 Maryland Drive • Ft. Washington, PA 19034 • 215/885-2900 • Toll Free 800-523-2200 • Fax 215/885-2910 • www.constructionequipmentguide.com
Inside
Age Turns Bridgetown Into Bridge-Repair Town By Dana Tims THE OREGONIAN
Road Connection Pays Visit to AEM...32
Kirby-Smith Receives Honor...32
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) Multnomah County commuters can be forgiven if they are suffering from a lingering case of bridge-repair fatigue. Needed repairs closed the Morrison Bridge for nearly a year recently, and streetcar work shut the Broadway Bridge before that. Construction of a new Sellwood Bridge, meanwhile, is slowing what was already a sloggy commute across the busiest two-lane bridge in the state. Well, for anyone thinking their daily game of bridge bingo is about over, there’s bad news.
expected in the spring, will break the work into phases to be tackled in the coming decade. Then, in 2014, crews will replace lift-span parts on both the Broadway and Morrison bridges. There’s more. The roughly 30 percent of the Broadway Bridge not painted eight years ago is scheduled for that work in 2015. And assuming nothing else breaks or simply wears out on other county-owned spans, engineers have identified seismic retrofits to the Broadway, Burnside, Morrison and Hawthorne bridges. Deborah Kafoury, the county commissioner
The Sellwood Bridge is set to be replaced.
“The four oldest bridges are all about 100 years old,” said county spokesman Mike Pullen. “People need to expect there will be ongoing work on all of those structures for years to come.” First up is an end-to-end analysis of the 86year-old Burnside Bridge. A consultant’s report,
see BRIDGES page 56
Men Over Manhattan Crane inspector Tim Barry (top right) and his crew look for lightning damage on a crane located at the 1 World Trade Center site. The CAN USA inspection team spends its days tethered to cranes situated hundreds of feet above the ground. This day, Barry and company inspected a crane 93 stories — about 1,200 ft. — above the ground.
Hawthorne CAT Joins NorAm Network...33
AP Photo/Joe Woolhead
Table of Contents ............4 Backhoes & Attachments Section ......................15-27 California Section ....33-35 Paving Section ........42-49 Auction Section ......52-57 Business Calendar ........54 Advertisers Index ..........58
AGC Releases Employment Data for Last Year Construction employment increased in just half the states plus the District of Columbia from June 2011 to June 2012, but declined in a slim majority of states in the past month, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by the Associated General Contractors of America. “The latest state data show again how fragile
and fragmentary the construction recovery is,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist. “Although private sector demand for structures has risen in most states, improvement in single-family homebuilding is spotty and public investment is shrinking.” Simonson noted that 25 states and D.C. added
construction jobs between June 2011 and June 2012, while construction employment fell in 25 states. D.C. added the highest percentage of new construction jobs for the year (17.8 percent, 2,100 jobs), followed by North Dakota (16.2 percent, 3,800 jobs) and Montana (14.6 percent, see AGC page 57