The third phase of reconstruction on Interstate 287 in Westchester County is moving toward pile driving and excavation efforts on the way to a November 2009 completion.

Rock blasting and demolition work on the $170 million project began last summer in the area between exits 6 and 8 around White Plains. The project entails pavement reconstruction, repair, and replacement of 9 bridges; installation of 2 mi of noise barriers and Intelligent Transportation Systems; and the addition of two auxiliary lanes and one new ramp-bridge over the Mamaroneck River.

On the westbound side, the team will build an auxiliary lane separate from the highway’s mainline and on the eastbound side, the auxiliary lane will be on the on-ramp from the Central Westchester Parkway and Interchange 8W.

The New York State Department of Transportation’s region 8 last year selected a joint venture contractor that partners Yonkers Contracting of Yonkers and Dragados USA, the domestic division of Madrid-based ACS group, a major global infrastructure contractor. It also hired Boswell Engineering of South Hackensack, N.J., for engineering inspection services.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has also partnered with Yonkers Dragados J.V. in an effort to eliminate serious hazards and achieve a high level of worker safety.

The total work area runs from the Bronx River Viaduct in White Plains to the White Plains Avenue Bridge over I-287 in Harrison, a 1.8-mi-leg. The repaving effort entails milling the existing overlay, replacing concrete pavement slabs, and installing a new asphalt overlay. 

The project team will also be removing two existing buildings on Lake Street. And the effort entails extensive utility relocation for electric and gas services from providers such as Verizon, Tennessee Gas, and Con Edison Gas and Electric.

The work across the entire project length will take place both in the city of White Plains and in the town of Harrison.

Construction is expected to begin this year on improvements to Metropark Station in Woodbridge, N.J., one of New Jersey Transit’s busiest outlying stations.

The refurbished station will be fitted with longer and wider platforms and an expanded station building to increase capacity. Construction will proceed while the station remains in operation serving a four-track railroad. The project is set for completion in 2010.

The agency awarded a $29.8 million contract to Anselmi & DeCicco of Maplewood, N.J., to execute the station improvements and construction of high-level platforms. Constructed in 1971, Metropark Station now serves 106 trains and approximately 7,200 NJ Transit customers on a typical weekday.

The federal government has proposed reassigning $2 billion in unused Liberty Zone tax benefits toward the on-again, off-again plans to construct a new rail link from Long Island, Downtown Brooklyn, and John F. Kennedy International Airport into Lower Manhattan. 

The budget presented earlier this year by the Bush Administration to Congress calls for assigning the funds to the JFK rail link plan. The proposal has been around for several years, but took a back seat in funding priorities to other large Metropolitan Transportation Authority projects in Manhattan, such as the $6.3 billion East Side Access program to bring Long Island Railroad trains to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, the $3.8 billion plan to build the new Second Avenue Subway’s first leg, and a $2.1 billion plan to extend the No. 7 subway line.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has pushed for progress on the rail link, >> citing the city’s lack of a direct connection between its main international airport and the financial district.

The plan would also bring LIRR trains into the downtown area, easing congestion on New York City Transit subway lines that currently collect commuters who disembark trains at Pennsylvania Station in the Midtown West district and then fan out to other parts of Manhattan.

Plans to move forward on an extension of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Flushing line, known as the 7 train, went off track in late winter over a dispute on responsibility for funding project overruns. 

The MTA had announced it would issue an award to a construction manager last year for the project, which New York City has pledged to finance using its capital funds. The project carried a $2.1 billion price tag in planning for a scope that would take the line west and south from its current terminus at Times Square to reach the Jacob K. Javits Center on W. 34th Street and 11th Avenue. It would have one station at the convention center and another at W. 41st Street and 10th Avenue.

But the start has been delayed because the MTA has told New York City officials it will not fund any cost overruns, a position reiterated in February in a letter sent by Elliot Sander, the new executive director and CFO of the agency, to Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, who chairs the Committee on Corporations, Commissions and Authorities for the New York State Assembly.

While Sander’s letter stated that the agency expected to finish the job within budget, it also made clear that the MTA would not take on any extra costs.

“Had we anticipated absorbing those costs, the obligation would have had to be added to our capital program and would have required approval by the Capital Program Review Board,” Sander wrote.

Brodsky released the letter along with his own analysis of shortcomings in the current project plan, which he criticized for not including the final build out of the 10th Avenue station. Brodsky wrote that the plan to defer the second station would lead to $250 million in extra costs.

Brodsky also criticized current calculations on a $200 million figure for soft costs included in the budget, which he says some members of the project team have told him is $50 million too low.