NYMTC Rebounds with New Office

More than three years after losing several staff members and its offices in the Sept. 11 attacks, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council recently relocated downtown. The council, which serves as the regional transportation planner for New York City and five suburban counties, opened its new office at 199 Water St.

NYMTC also announced a program to fund innovative studies and raise public awareness about transportation planning. Based at City College of New York's University Transportation Research Program, it will honor the council staffers who died in the collapse of One World Trade Center - Ignatius Adanga, Charles Lesperance, and See Wong Shum.

NYMTC also recently teamed up with New York University and its Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management to sponsor a conference on the region's traffic snarls. The symposium - aimed to inform ongoing council initiatives - covered the costs and causes of congestion, operations, capacity expansion, and the transportation and land use nexus.

Seven Projects Win GBC Honors

Three projects from upstate, two in Manhattan, and one from the Bronx received 2004 Build New York awards for excellence in construction management. The awards, presented by the General Building Contractors of New York State to companies from across the state, recognize outstanding management, imagination, perseverance under unusual and challenging circumstances, safety excellence, and innovative construction techniques.

In the large new project category, Bovis Lend Lease LMB won for the Time Warner Center in Manhattan. The award for small-to-medium-size new project went to E.W. Howell of Woodbury for the New York Botanical Garden Visitor Center in the Bronx. A lighting and acoustical upgrade of the United Nations General Assembly Hall by Alexander Wolf & Son of New York won in the renovation project category. And Syracuse-based Northeast Construction Services took honors in the new/renovation project category for the Aurora Inn in Aurora.

The expansion and renovation of the Court of Appeals Hall in Albany won honorable mention for BBL Construction Services, based in the state capital. Also earning honorable mention was Welliver McGuire of Montour Falls for phase one of Duffield Hall at Cornell University in Ithaca.

Mixed Insurance Forecast at AIA/ACEC Event

Insurance rates could level off for some design firms with good claims track records, said panelists at a recent conference on insurance issues for the design profession sponsored by the New York chapters of the American Institute of Architects and the American Consulting Engineers Council. But increased litigation may continue to drive up rates for some practices, such as structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, and housing.

Moderated by Michael De Chiara, general counsel to both groups and a partner in the law firm of Zetlin & De Chiara, the panel of leading underwriters also discussed issues such as factors influencing insurance rates, how firms qualify for favorable rates, and steps that protect against litigation.

Electrical Apprentices Earn Stripes

More than 100 local students graduated last fall from the five-year apprentice-training program sponsored by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 164 of Paramus, N.J. and the National Electrical Contractors Association's Bergen-Essex-Hudson Division, according to a press release. The largest of its kind, the program serves as a model for similar courses nationwide.

Graduates must complete 184 hours of classroom training per year, log 8,000 hours of on-the-job training under a journeyman's supervision, and pass a final examination. The course trains apprentices to interpret blueprints, work safely with high voltages, and install, repair, and service electrical equipment and controls in various project settings.

State AGC Honored for Outreach

The New York State chapter of the Associated General Contractors recently earned honors for its media campaign supporting the 2004 Work Zone Safety Act.

At a recent conference in Baltimore, the American Road and Transportation Builders Association and National Safety Council chose the chapter for best private outreach campaign for its radio ads and a news conference supporting legislation that would impose a 30-day license suspension and higher fines for speeding in work zones.

Concrete Board Names Best of '04

The Concrete Industry Board announced its 43rd Annual Roger H. Corbetta Awards winners. The New York-based group presented its annual award to P.S./I.S. 499 in Queens for its "superior structural framing system" and for creating "an architecturally pleasing environment." Awards of merit with special recognition went to the Interchange 8 reconstruction in Elmsford, N.Y., and to the Consolidated Edison substation at 7 World Trade Center.

Earning awards of merit were two infrastructure projects - the Kensico flow control modification project in Valhalla and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway reconstruction in Woodside - as well as three mixed-use Manhattan buildings at 205 East 59th St., 731 Lexington Ave., and 455 Central Park West. An "out of area" award went to the Weehawken Tunnel and Bergenline Station in New Jersey.

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