MTA Outlines New Subway Tunneling Contracts

Two big contracts are ready to hit the market, both requiring TBM technology and likely to attract bidders worldwide. Also, Rt. 7 in Connecticut gets a $240 million widening and reconstruction.

New N.Y.C. Tunnels Set for Bidding

Construction bids for two major Metropolitan Transportation Authority subway projects in Manhattan - the $3.8 billion first leg of the new Second Avenue line and the $2 billion extension of the No. 7 line - were set to go out by the end of the year, said Mysore Nagaraja, president of the agency's capital construction unit, at a recent industry briefing in New York.

Nagaraja said the winning contractor may well bear strong resemblance to the team that won a $428 million contract from the MTA over the summer for its other big Manhattan tunnel job, a 1-mi., four-tube dig that will connect a new station at Grand Central Terminal to Long Island Rail Road trains from Queens.

That contract for the $6.3 billion East Side Access program went to a joint venture of Dragados USA, a unit of Madrid-based ACS Group, and Judlau Contracting of College Point, N.Y., a Queens contractor that handles its share of more routine MTA work.

The rub of the joint venture's success is that the tunneling for the 2-mi. Second Avenue segment and the 7,000-ft.-long No. 7 project both will require advanced boring techniques and equipment used in other parts of the world but seldom in New York.

"You have these European contractors coming in and that's a big challenge to the local contractors," Nagaraja said.

While the winning bid may well have a local contractor teamed with a European firm, Nagaraja said that the advanced level of work will raise the bar and attract local players.

"That really will be the challenge to everybody to be more innovative," he added. "The local guys are now going to sharpen their pencils. It's going to be a healthy type of competition that will ultimately benefit the public."

The No. 7 contract, which Nagaraja said is coming out "later this year, " will dig tunnels, caverns, and station structures that would stretch the existing line from its terminus at 42nd Street in Times Square to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Manhattan's Far West Side. The $900 million to $1 billion job will go out under an RFP process, as opposed to a low-bidder project, said Philip McGrade, the MTA's program manager for the project.

The project, which New York City is funding out of its own capital monies, also requires the city to finalize takings of several properties that would be used for stations and shafts along the route, a process that Nagaraja said is expected to be complete later this year.

The Second Avenue project has two bids going out, one for construction management consultant services, and a second, 37-month low-bid contract for construction of phase 1 of the line, which will run tunnels from a new 92nd Street station to the existing 63rd Street station on the F line. The contract would include excavation for new stations at 86th Street and 72nd Street, as well as tunnels stretching farther north to be used as storage capacity.

Both projects would require a 19-ft., 6-in. inside diameter, precast segmental binder tunnel, though Nagaraja said the agency might consider cast-in-place concrete.

The 7 extension is set to open in 2012, and the Second Avenue leg would open in 2013.

Rt. 7 Project Begins in Connecticut

A six-contract project to widen and reconstruct major portions of Route 7 in southeastern Connecticut on a line from Norwalk to Danbury began this fall. The contracts are valued at $200 million, along with roughly $40 million in inspection and utility relocation work, according to the Connecticut Department of Transportation.

The agency awarded a $35 million contract in August to Tilcon Connecticut of New Britain for a segment of the reconstruction and widening effort in Wilton that is expected to run three years. The initial effort will include the installation of environmental erosion and sedimentation controls; the addition of new water main, sewer, and drainage pipes; and temporary widening of the road in order to prepare for future construction tasks. Dewberry-Goodkind of New Haven, Conn., assisted on the design.

Widening work is also about halfway complete on the Rt. 7 expressway in the Danbury area in an effort that began last year with Tilcon as contractor and Parsons Transportation Group of Boston aiding on design. That project combines with a second phase planned for 2008, and together they total $40 million in construction value.

Other projects are set to begin in the next few years, including a $100 million construction effort on the final portion of the Rt. 7-Merritt Parkway interchange in Norwalk in spring 2008, with Purcell Associates of Glastonbury, Conn., on design. A $25 million widening of Rt. 7 from Norwalk to Wilton should start in summer 2009, with Earth Tech of Glastonbury, Conn., contracted for design services.

New N.J. Light Rail Extension

New Jersey Transit is planning to issue a design-build contract for the construction of an $89 million, 1-mi. extension of its Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system to a new station at 8th Street in Bayonne.

The new station will become the system's southern terminus, replacing the current end of the line in Bayonne at 22nd Street. In September, the transit agency's board authorized $2.1 million in design planning and environmental work to prepare the design-build package, which would be awarded next summer.

The new elevated station at Avenue C and 8th Street will serve the city's Bergen Point neighborhood. The extension will follow a Conrail right-of-way along the current alignment, then cross over several streets on a viaduct.

The new station will be designed to evoke the Central Railroad of New Jersey station that had stood near the site. Construction would begin in 2008 and finish in 2009.

The system's first $993 million, 16-station phase in Hudson County was completed in 2000. A $1.2 billion, seven-station expansion finished earlier this year and took it into Bergen County.

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