News In Brief Road to safety The U.S. Department of Transportations’ Build America Bureau has provided a low-interest, long-term loan of $41.55 million to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) to finance 49 percent of the $85.97 million in eligible costs for the Rural Two-Lane Advancement And Management Plan (RAAMP). The Bureau helps communities across the country reduce the costs of infrastructure projects by providing Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loans, known as TIFIA loans, and other types of financing. Under the Rural Projects Initiative (RPI), the loan is for nearly half the project costs instead of the customary 33 percent. The project will provide significant safety improvements, one of the primary objectives of RAAMP. The project is a compilation of eight rural projects that will add nearly 27 miles of 8-foot shoulders and asphalt resurfacing as well as 6.4 miles of roadway reconstruction.
Award winners Mammoet’s USA team has won a Job of the Year award at the Specialized Carriers and Rigging Association’s (SC&RA) Annual Conference in Washington D.C. The award was for Hauling Job of the Year in the Moving project category, which highlights transports done using specialized equipment such as selfpropelled transporters, dollies, and crawler assemblies. Mammoet presented the successful completion of the transport of the furnace modules for the Gulf Coast Growth Ventures plastics manufacturing facility in San Patricio County, Texas. The largest furnace module measured approximately 91m long by 43m wide, towered over 21m tall (300 ft. long by 140 ft. wide and nearly 170 ft. tall). and weighed in over 8,000t. A single module required seven trains of SPMT trailers at 46 axle lines in length and each module was transported along a dedicated eight kilometer, or 4.7-mile, heavy haul route using SPMTs. Adam Bettis, Engineering Team Lead at Mammoet stated how proud the company was to accomplish this project, and that it was a great honor to have the opportunity to receive the Hauling Job of the Year in its category.
$123m tunnel rehab COWI, in joint venture
Preserving history Landmarks Illinois, the statewide historic preservation nonprofit, issued its first loan through its Reinvestment Program Loan Fund to the Greater Chatham Initiative (GCI) to help finance the preservation of a South Side building that is now home to the organization’s ‘Artist on the 9’ coworking space and gallery. As Bonnie McDonald, President & CEO of Landmarks Illinois explained: “Our goal with this loan program is to provide accessible funding and lending terms to worthy preservation projects in Illinois that may be unable to attain conventional financing. We also hope it provides economic opportunities in Illinois communities and sparks future investments in our historic places.”
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with CHA Consulting, Inc. (CHA) as the owner’s engineer, has provided quality oversight to support the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA) in the completion of five design-build contracts worth $123 million to rehabilitate the Hugh L. Carey and Queens Midtown Tunnels In New York. The upgrade project has advanced current systems, enhancing public safety and reliability of the city’s transport network. Environmental events such as hurricane Sandy have had devastating effects on New York and its transport infrastructure, highlighting the need for advancement in design and technology. COWI and CHA were contracted to provide expert quality oversight and coordination of new ventilation and fire systems, including advanced smoke detection and communication systems in the tunnels. All upgrades were completed on budget during the pandemic and on-time, without closing the tunnels to traffic. Steven Kramer, Senior Vice President and Project Director for the project at COWI said: “This project was very close to home for our engineers, most of us have used these tunnels and know how vital they are to the ecosystem of New York. Working on such a deep-rooted part of our transport network can be challenging but our proactivity and collaboration with construction partners provided a design-build model that offered significant cost and schedule reductions.”
