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September 7, 2013 • Vol. IX • No. 18 • 470 Maryland Drive • Ft. Washington, PA 19034 • 215/885-2900 • Toll Free 800-523-2200 • Fax 215/885-2910
Inside
Colorado’s Twin Tunnels Widening Begins By Lori Tobias CEG CORRESPONDENT
Volvo Combines Two Machines in One...16
Bigge Participates in Rescue Drill...27
The blasting is conducted throughout the day, creating closures that last about 20 to 30 minutes. Traffic is stopped a safe distance from the tunnels prior to the blasting.
On a good day, the 60 mi. (97 km) drive home on I-70 from Colorado’s mountain play land takes about an hour. On a bad day — and there are many — you can expect to triple the drive time home. Throw in an accident and there’s no telling when you’ll make it. That’s all about to change. Contractors have begun work to widen 3 mi. (4.8 km) of eastbound lanes from Idaho Springs to the bottom of Floyd Hill, including the widening of an existing tunnel and a new bridge. “It’s a very big deal,” said CDOT spokesman Bob Wilson. “That corridor has suffered with increased traffic since the highway was originally built in 1961. It will make the highway three lanes all see TUNNELS page 60
Iron Financing AGC Opposes Obama’s Confidence Rises Employment Regulations Metso Acquires Chinese Steel Foundry...34
Table of Contents ................4 Paving Section ............17-25 California Section ........27-29 Mini & Compact Equipment Section..........................35-49 Business Calendar ............50 Auction Section ..........54-63 Advertisers Index ..............62
The Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation (the Foundation) released the August 2013 Monthly Confidence Index for the Equipment Finance Industry (MCI-EFI). Designed to collect leadership data, the index reports a qualitative assessment of both the prevailing business conditions and expectations for the future as reported by key executives from the $725 billion equipment finance sector. Overall, confidence in the equipment finance market is 61.0, an increase from the July index of 59.4, and the fourth consecutive increase of the MCI-EFI. When asked about the outlook for the future, MCI survey respondent William Verhelle, chief executive officer, First see SURVEY page 58
ConExpo Retro
See page 14 for an ongoing series of highlights from past ConExpos as they were reported in the pages of CEG.
The Obama administration should reconsider its proposal to impose oppressive new regulations governing the employment of veterans and people with disabilities on federal contractors, officials with the Associated General Contractors of America argued Aug. 6 during a meeting with the administration. Association officials said federal employment and compliance enforcement data indicate there is no justification for the costly new rules. “As the data makes clear, veterans and the disabled are already extremely well represented in the construction industry,” said Stephen E. Sandherr, the association’s chief executive officer, following a meeting today with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). “These new rules offer a very
costly fix for a problem that, according to the government’s own data, doesn’t appear to exist.” The proposed new rules allegedly address “higher unemployment” rates among veterans and the disabled community, according to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). Yet federal employment data shows that the annual average unemployment rate for all veterans in 2012 was 7 percent, lower than the 7.9 percent rate for nonveterans, while a higher share of employed veterans than nonveterans work in the construction industry. In addition, people with disabilities are as likely to be employed by construction firms as people without disabilities according to the Bureau of Labor see AGC page 55