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The Route 9A reconstructionin Lower Manhattan is no ordinary street building project.
The stretch of road known as West Street is in one of the most high-profile construction zones in the nation, bordering the World Trade Center site on one flank and running down to the end of the island where it also leads to an entrance to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.
The reconstruction is taking place in several phases, the most prominent of which is the segment next to the World Trade Center site. That portion was the focus of an intense debate over whether to put the lanes next to the site in a tunnel. That below-grade option was unpopular with some stakeholders, in part because of its cost, and the state shelved it this spring in favor of an at-grade route.
Meanwhile, work is ongoing further south on a 1-mi. stretch of the road approaching Battery Park. The $170 million project, designated as Promenade South, is being managed by general contractor Conti Enterprises.
"Where it goes down to the Battery Park Underpass is where it got tricky," said Robert Conway, a principal at AKRF, an environmental consulting firm based in New York that prepared the environmental impact statements for the downtown 9A jobs. "The hard part is the staging and maintenance of traffic, which changes how long things take and how much they cost."
Promenade South takes in the area that crosses Battery Place and the Battery Place Underpass. The project started last December.
"The challenges of constructing this project in one of the most heavily congested areas includes dealing with the massive amount of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, the interfacing with other large projects in Lower Manhattan, like the MTA's South Ferry Station, and satisfying the stringent environmental and 'quality of life' limits set by the multiple agencies and communities involved," said Jerry Glickel, Conti's on-site construction manager.
Although most of the work, which requires lane and tunnel closures, is being done at night, Conti has used some innovative techniques to complete tasks without disrupting traffic flow. During the demolition process for the roof of the Battery Park Underpass, for instance, the team used wire cutting techniques to remove the existing structure in order to reduce noise.
Utility work has proved challenging and at time hazardous as well. Conti crews have worked under metal plates as traffic passes overhead. Work is currently in phases 2 and 3 of the five-phase project. Averaging 70 workers per day, the project is nearly halfway through, slated for completion next spring.
Meanwhile, the New York State Department of Transportation completed a Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the higher-profile portion, the reconstruction of the roadway from West Thames Street to Chambers Street, in the spring. It recommended the "At-Grade Alternative", which calls for restoring West Street as an eight-lane surface roadway with bikeway, promenade, sidewalk, public park, and landscaping.
The project, which still requires approval from the Federal Highway Administration, has an 18-month design period that is already underway and a 26-month construction project, according to Heather Sporn, a spokeswoman for the department of transportation.
"Before 9/11 the northbound roadway was sitting in the basement of the World Trade Center site with ramps to the garage from the median," Sporn said. "As a result of the attacks, the roadway was covered with debris, it was damaged, and we had to shift the entire road west without a median. We built temporary roadways and barriers, but no sidewalks."
The department kept a haul road on the east side of the roadway and built temporary sidewalks at Vesey Street to support emergency vehicles, the clean-up, and the reconstruction of the damaged site.
"We expect the new construction to enhance the connections between Battery Park, the Lower Manhattan business district, and Ellis Island area," Sporn added.
The at grade option will cost $700 million less than the proposed tunnel and take less time to build because it will require less materials and cause less disruption of utility lines and other nearby projects, she added.
Another major facet of the new alignment is that it shifted by about 40 ft. to remove the roadway from above the World Trade Center "bathtub," the 70-ft.-deep foundation space above which part of the street had sat before Sept. 11, said AKRF's Conway.
The new project is relying on $200 million from the Federal Transit Administration first announced in July. The total cost of the project is $265 million, and the remaining $65 million will come from the Federal Highway Administration's Emergency Relief fund.
"Coordination among New York Community Board 1, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Port Authority, Battery Park, and Downtown Alliance has addressed a complex interaction of needs and given rise to a lot of coordination necessary to complete this project," Sporn said. "There has been a lot of interagency coordination and the people are very good - very knowledgeable."
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