Tunnels and Bridges

Region Set for Major Infrastructure Push

More than $20 billion worth of new projects is on the map to cross rivers, extend mass-transit lines, dig deep under webs of existing infrastructure, and otherwise expand the region's road, rail, and utility capacity. If big-ticket projects go forward as planned, they will form the biggest wave of work in decades. But securing stable funding - the Achilles' heel of large infrastructure jobs in the region - looms as a major obstacle.

by Bruce Buckley

Heavy infrastructure contractors in the New York region are eyeing an array of proposed projects that could produce the most exciting era for bridge and tunnel construction in decades.

Several megaprojects - such as construction of a deep tunnel that will connect Long Island Rail Road trains in Queens to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan - have already begun. Jobs that would start in the next few years include the $7.2 billion Trans-Hudson Express tunnel between Manhattan and New Jersey and the $1.4 billion Q Bridge project in New Haven, Conn.

Driven by efforts to increase capacity, improve efficiency, and shore up security, the project pipeline is packed.

But while the sector's leaders are optimistic, they also remember other major infrastructure projects - such as the Westway highway project in Manhattan in the 1980s or the aborted subway extension to LaGuardia Airport in Queens in the 1990s - that never got off the regional drawing board, despite extensive planning. Funding shortfalls, difficult logistics, and political wrangling have continued to push anticipated start dates of projects such as the Second Avenue Subway in Manhattan onto future sheets of the calendar.

Doubt lingers among some in the industry that all of the major projects can move forward on the same track, said Lee Abramson, executive vice president and eastern regional manager at Hatch Mott MacDonald, a national engineering firm based in Millburn, N.J.

"It's a bit uncertain as to which of those projects will kick into full force the soonest and which will get dragged out or maybe not get built," he added.

But the flip side - all of the projects advancing as planned - also presents concerns, Abramson said.

"If for some reason it does all go at once, where will all of the construction workers, the contractors, the bonding capacity, and the construction managers come from?" he asked.

Indeed, the industry should brace itself for the possibility that the current menu of projects could go forward, said Richard Maitino, vice president in New York for Parsons, an engineering and construction firm based in Pasadena, Calif.

"There's a sense in the marketplace that while all of the funding isn't in place all of these projects will move," he added. "There are enormous state commitments and political will to move forward. There's an era of bigger thinking that's been going on over the last five to six years that's starting to reach culmination."

Big Rumblings of Work Down Under

Much of the big thinking has been concentrated underground. Public agencies are juggling numerous big-dollar tunnel projects in the New York metro area.

One of the hottest topics is the planned New Jersey Transit tunnel under the Hudson River that will result in a new terminal at 34th Street in Manhattan and double the commuter line's capacity. The project would route two new tracks under the river and the New Jersey Palisades, creating a total of 8 mi. of tunneling in two tubes.

The project has been collecting pledges of support in recent months, from Federal Transit Administration approval for preliminary engineering in July to a promise later that month of $1 billion in funding from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, with the possibility of another $1 billion in the future. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine had committed $500 million from the state earlier in the spring.

In August, the transit agency awarded an $82.5 million contract for engineering to a joint venture of three New York firms - Parsons Brinckerhoff, STV, and DMJM Harris. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2009 with completion set for 2016.

The goal is to add flexibility to a network hamstrung by limited capacity in Amtrak tunnels under the Hudson, said Arthur Silber, project chief for New Jersey Transit.

"Today, the existing Amtrak tunnel is one tube in and one tube out," he added. "Sometimes it comes out of service for maintenance and improvements. With the new tunnel, we'll have the ability in off-peaks to take them down and still keep a robust service going into New York."

Various other tunnel projects are in the works for New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which plans to expand train and subway service on several fronts.

One of the biggest is the $6.3 billion East Side Access program to bring LIRR trains, which currently only go to Pennsylvania Station on Manhattan's West Side, into Grand Central Terminal. The MTA's Capital Construction Co. unit awarded a $428 million contract in July to a joint venture of Judlau Contracting of College Point, N.Y., and Dragados USA, a unit of Madrid-based ACS Group.

The team is boring four tubes for 1 mi. to Grand Central from the existing 63rd Street tunnel, which links to Queens under the East River. The dig will use two hard-rock tunnel boring machines to remove 346,606 cu. yd. of rock and traditional perforation and blasting methods to extract an additional 65,000 cu. yd.

The MTA also plans to award a tunneling contract this year to dig a $2 billion extension for New York City Transit's 7 subway line. The 7,000-ft.-long tunnel would stretch west and south from Times Square to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on West 34th Street and 11th Avenue and have two stations. The extension, designed by New York-based Parsons Brinckerhoff, would open in 2012.

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Next year, the MTA also plans to begin on a new leg of the Second Avenue line, a project planned in the 1960s and partially built before New York's fiscal crisis in the 1970s. The four-phase program would begin with a $3.8 billion, 2-mi. tunnel from East 96th Street to East 63rd Street. The first phase would be open in 2013, while future phases would bring the project's total budget to $16 billion and length to 8.1 mi. from east Harlem to Wall Street.

The need to increase capacity is also driving water tunnel projects. New York City's Department of Environmental Protection recently finished excavation of the second stage of City Water Tunnel No. 3, a four-stage, multiyear effort to add needed backup to the city's first and second water tunnels, which date to 1917 and 1936.

"We're trying to build redundancy into the water system" that will allow for maintenance and repair, said Ian Michaels, a spokesman with the agency. "There are two tunnels which we rely on everyday and we can't turn them off."

The recently completed stage began in October 2003 and resulted in an 8.5-mi. tunnel that spokes in three directions from West 30th Street toward Central Park, the Lower East Side, the Upper East Side. The $1 billion stage introduced the use of tunnel-boring machines to the project, which originally began in 1970 and would cost $6 billion if all four stages are completed by 2020.

The recently completed tunnel was dug from 400 ft. to 800 ft. below grade by a joint venture of J.F. Shea Construction of Walnut, Calif., Schiavone Construction of Secaucus, N.J., and Frontier-Kemper Constructors of Evansville, Ind., a division of Germany-based Deilmann-Haniel.

While the second stage still requires shaft-digging and concrete pouring work, the city's environmental department is planning the next stage, known as the Kensico City Tunnel, which would connect the Kensico Reservoir in Westchester County to the city. Earlier this year, the agency tapped a joint venture of San Francisco-based URS Corp., TAMS/Earth Tech of Long Beach, Calif., and Gannett Fleming of Harrisburg, Pa., to design it.

Another dig in the works involves boring a new $125 million water siphon from Brooklyn to Staten Island in a job made necessary by a $1.6 billion dredging program in New York Harbor. An existing pair of water siphons located north of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge currently provides a backup water supply for Staten Island. But the pipes, which are 22 in. and 46 in. in diameter, are in the way of plans to deepen the harbor to 50 ft.

The New York City Economic Development Corp. is overseeing the project for the city's environmental department. Design work is due next year from a joint venture of Hatch Mott and CDM of Cambridge, Mass. Construction of the replacement - likely to be a single 72 in. to 84. in. pipe buried as deep as 75 ft. - would begin in fall 2007, according to Nazir Mir, vice president in capital programs group at EDC.

Bridging New Gaps with Big Projects

Work aboveground is also on the horizon. Although a recent round of rehabilitation projects is finishing up on structures such as the Bronx Whitestone, Triborough, Goethals, and George Washington bridges, many firms are eyeing other big prizes across the region.

"It's a brighter picture," said Vince Campisi, partner and chief engineer for transportation structures in the Parsippany N.J., office of Clough Harbour & Associates of Albany, N.Y. "Many of the states in the Northeast have gotten their budgets in order to the point where they can move forward with a lot of things."

A major effort is the potential replacement of the Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River, which links the New York State Thruway between Westchester and Rockland counties. The MTA, state Thruway Authority, and state Department of Transportation are paring down options in order to prepare a draft environmental impact statement.

The agencies were narrowing a list of six alternatives this year in search of ways to solve congestion problems on the seven-lane, 3.1-mi.-long span. Two of the final six alternatives would simply redeck and improve the bridge at costs of about $600 million, while other options would range in cost from $5 billion to $14 billion and involve new bridges, with some including the addition of commuter rail tracks.

The state transportation agency is also planning to replace the Kosciuszko Bridge on a 1.1-mi. leg of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway between the two boroughs. A final EIS is due in June for the $500 million job, which heads into design next year.

The Port Authority is also studying the possibility of replacing the 76-year-old Goethals Bridge between New Jersey and Staten Island. A draft EIS for the project is due early next year, according to the U.S. Coast Guard, which is directing the study.

Work is slated to begin next year on Connecticut's replacement of the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge, known as the Q Bridge because it is where Interstate 95 crosses the Quinnipiac River. The plan calls for an extradosed structural system that incorporates elements of segmental girder and cable-stayed designs.

Security Now a Prime Consideration

For tunnel and bridge projects alike, security issues are greatly expanding the scope of work, said Jeff Purdy, senior vice president of Edwards and Kelcey, a civil engineering firm based in Morristown, N.J.

"The Federal Transit Administration combined with the Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security are saying we have a problem here [in the U.S.]," Purdy said. "We're seeing a tremendous amount of increased work coming on the systems side."

Purdy said that with hundreds of miles of tunnels and bridges in the tri-state area, the demand for secure mechanical systems and blast-resistant structures is high.

"This kind of work is all being let out now and you'll see it built out over a five-year period," he said. "It's attracting some of the best systems people out there."