Coordination Is Key

The Illinois Department of Transportation is rehabilitating the Dan Ryan Expressway at the same time, and the construction schedules between it and the CTA project were carefully coordinated, said John McCue, Chicago-area manager for Kiewit/Reyes Joint Venture, general contractor of the CTA project.

The interstate and Red Line trains, which run 24 hours every day of the year, could not be taken out of service during the project. There was no site for laydown and staging, no logical access to the work area and only tiny windows of time between trains in which to accomplish the work.

"We made it a little easier by coming up with an alternate way of doing the work," McCue said. "We built a run-around track on the shoulder of the Dan Ryan."

Susan Plassmeyer, CTA vice president for engineering and facilities maintenance, said, "We really had to work with the contractors and think outside the box to come up with the plan of moving the construction zone by one lane on each side of the tracks. It meant the difference between having an open zone or a place with trains constantly running through it."

Getting various agencies onboard and interstate traffic moved over to accommodate the closed shoulder was an enormous task, but the run-arounds worked well and created an area in which crews could work safely.

Several storage yards were set up nearby, and as much material as possible was prefabricated in the yards so that it could be delivered to the site and set in place immediately, McCue said.

Two small tamping machines were brought in off the shoulder and set in place on the tracks. Two different gradations of crushed limestone were laid as bedding before the tracks could go in place.

"There was also a lot of coordination with workers from Aldridge/Mass Joint Venture because they had the lion's share of the underground electrical conduit and duct banks," McCue said. "They had to work right along with us.

For every manhour we spent, they spent almost an equal number."

Safety Comes First

Getting equipment and materials to the site raised one of the project's biggest safety concerns.

"The run-arounds allowed us to keep services reliable for our customers, but the safety implications were huge," Plassmeyer said.

McCue added: "We viewed traffic as a huge risk. We had strict rules on how workers would access the site, how trucks would pull in and out of freeway traffic and we had a no-tolerance policy."

Concrete barriers with extensions were put in place to protect the CTA trains and workers from interstate traffic.

"Trucks would pull onto the shoulder and into protection even when unloading," McCue said. Our personnel could access the site through the station."

The tracks also presented some safety concerns, which were addressed with each person who came onto the site.

"We do an individual, one-day training session for any worker who will be working on our right-of-way," Plassmeyer said. The session provides certification that must be renewed periodically.

"I have been through the certification twice and I think my certification comes up again at the end of the year," Plassmeyer added. "All of the management team goes through it, as do employees that work in the restricted zones and all CTA rail employees."

When the last run-around was taken out of service in November, no accidents that would affect workers had occurred.

"The Dan Ryan traffic will still be a constant challenge" during the remainder of the project, McCue said. He added that one of the upcoming issues will be routing passengers around construction zones while work begins in the stations.

There will be "a unique plan for each station," he said.

One of a Kind

The Dan Ryan Red Line rehabilitation project had no models around the country for learning.

Plassmeyer said communication is one of the major factors in keeping the project safe and also bringing it in on time and on budget.

"Our organization has changed over the last few years," she added. "We are very open with information and encourage contractors to look at the documents and key information we have put on the Web. We include a background on the CTA and our priorities in terms of how we look at our customers and the fact that we want to serve them well."