Voters in and around Hartford, Conn., approved an $800 million bond measure in November that has paved the way for a $1.6 billion program to upgrade sewer plants, lines, and other systems in the region.

More than 70 percent of voters in Hartford and seven surrounding towns – Bloomfield, East Hartford, Newington, Rocky Hill, West Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor – endorsed a proposal for the Metropolitan District Commission sewerage authority, a state-chartered institution, to issue the $800 million in bonds for the projects. The authority expects to seek up to another $800 million through state and federal grants for future work if the first phase doesn’t address ongoing sewer problems.

The capital program, dubbed the “Clean Water Project,” responds to a consent degree that the authority signed over the summer with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. The decree requires the authority to address sewer overflow problems, particularly during heavy rainfalls, and to reduce the levels of nitrogen in effluent that flows to the Long Island Sound.

Among the projects that the bonds will fund are: $250 million for expansion of an existing wastewater treatment plant and for the installation of nitrogen-removal equipment; the installation and construction of separate sewer lines for sanitary waste and rainwater in parts of the region that currently only have a single pipeline and limited capacity; and improvements to areas that experience flooding or other sewer problems.

Work on some “sewer line separation” projects has already begun and the first phase is expected to run through 2013. A spokesman for the authority said that it expects to concentrate this year on design, though new construction contracts are likely to be let before 2008. Camp Dresser McKee of Cambridge, Mass., has an ongoing design consulting role, while contractors such as Paganelli Construction of Suffield, Conn., and Trumbull Construction of Ansonia, Conn., are working on current projects.

Construction started last fall on a $400 million replacement bridge between Ocean City and Somers Point in New Jersey, a project overseen by the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

The new Route 52 Causeway Bridge will replace two fixed and two moveable bridges. The new structure will consist of two high fixed spans over Ship Cannon and Beach Thorofare, linked by a touch down on Rainbow Island. Ocean City is 20 mi. south of Atlantic City.

The new 3-mi.-long bridge will feature two 12-ft.-wide lanes in each direction, 8-ft. shoulders, and a concrete median divider. The larger project also entails construction of a visitor’s center and several fishing piers. The transportation agency tapped George Harms Construction of Farmingdale, N.J., as construction manager.

The department was able to shave $90 million off the cost of the first phase, which encompasses replacement of 1.2 mi. of a 73-year-old interior bridge from Elbow Island to Garrett’s Island. The savings will come from elimination of 3,200 ft. of the bridge’s structure through a realignment and removal of a traffic circle, as well as from modified dredging, environmental mitigation, and simplification of the fishing piers.

The construction schedule calls for completing the northbound bridge on a new alignment east of the existing causeway by summer 2008. That will allow the team to take traffic off the old causeway and demolish it in order to make room for the new southbound roadway. The southbound lanes would open in fall 2009.

The $200 million project is the third major rehabilitation of the road, which is designated Interstate 278, in the last five years. The new project will focus on a 2-mi. section between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street and includes a triple cantilever portion that holds the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and offers unobstructed views of downtown Manhattan.

The work will also encompass rehabilitation of 21 bridges, including complicated connections to the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

New Jersey Transit’s proposed Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel project to build a new passenger rail crossing beneath the Hudson River is moving ahead with the narrowing of both digging options and potential construction management teams.

The $7.2 billion project is expected to double commuter rail capacity between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan upon its completion in 2016. The agency plans to select a construction manager this month from two short-listed joint ventures, the first of which is URS of New York and Hatch Mott MacDonald of Millburn, N.J., and the other consisting of New York-based Tishman Construction, Parsons of Pasadena, Calif., and the New York office of London-based Arup.

Though construction would likely start more than two years from now, New Jersey Transit wants close design and construction management coordination, said Richard Sarles, assistant executive director of capital planning and programs for the agency, who recently described the project’s progress at a meeting of the Greater New York Chapter of the Women’s Transportation Seminar.

Sarles said the design team of three New York firms, Parsons Brinckerhoff, STV, and DMJM Harris/AECOM, has identified three tunnel-digging methods that the proposed 4.5-mi. alignment is likely to require because of a variety of geological conditions. The team – which was awarded an $87 million engineering contract last summer – has not yet pinpointed the extent and location of the three methods, which include tunnel boring for harder bedrock, the pressure balance method for softer soils, and cut-and-cover for shallow depths close to shores.

The team is also considering the New Austrian digging method, which uses geological stress to stabilize the tunnel. It is expected to report back at the end of the year or in early 2008.

The project so far has a $1 billion commitment from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and $500 million from the New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund. The Port Authority has pledged an additional $1 billion, and Sarles said the project’s federal funding prospects are bright based on the results of recent meetings with the new U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters.

“I can say that [the THE Tunnel] was well received and they’re enthusiastic about helping us move forward on this,” Sarles said.

The station component of the project will add six to eight new station tracks with platforms 95 to 130 ft. below 34th Street between 6th and 7th avenues, with some tracks extending to 8th Avenue. The platforms will connect to Pennsylvania Station to the south and to local subway stations, as well as to the proposed $900 million Moynihan Station two blocks to the south. The project is expected to generate 6,000 construction jobs.