Illinois DOT Unveils $11.25 Billion Multi-Year Highway Improvement Program

The Illinois Department of Transportation has unveiled an $11.25-billion multi-year highway improvement program for Fiscal Years 2010-2015 that focuses on maintenance of the current road system.

The proposal aims to preserve and maintain the existing highway system of roads and bridges, upgrade existing facilities for congestion mitigation and safety improvements, and expand the system to help spur economic development in the state.

“IDOT will stay focused on maintaining the condition of the state’s roads and bridges as well as safety improvements,” says Transportation Secretary Gary Hannig. “But in order to build a brighter economic future, it is critical that we pass a full-scale capital plan. This plan would not only enable us to invest in transportation, but also create the jobs and opportunity we need to keep our economy moving forward.”

The proposed $11.25-billion highway improvement program for fiscal-year 2010-2015 MYP is based upon conservative estimates of federal, state and local funding, with $7.499 billion in federal funds, $3.047 billion in state funds including $1.552 billion in bonds from Governor Pat Quinn’s Illinois Jobs Now! “mini-capital” program and $704 million in local funds.

The $11.25-billion highway improvement program for FY 2010-2015 includes $8.442 billion for improvements to the state highway system and $2.808 billion available for local roads. Governor Quinn’s Illinois Jobs Now! jump starts Illinois’ economy with a comprehensive plan to build new schools, repair aging roads and bridges, improve mass transit, create green jobs and maximize the federal recovery money Illinois receives. This comprehensive plan provides over $28.3 billion in combined state, federal and local funds for infrastructure projects across the state and supports over 420,000 jobs over six years.

The FY 2010-2015 Proposed Highway Improvement Program is expected to ensure the following:

• Provide funding to improve 4,800 miles of highways and replace or rehabilitate 802 bridges;

• Provide for reinvestment in downstate Illinois for interstate highways such as Interstate 80 from east of Illinois 40 to west of Illinois 89 in Bureau County;

• Provide $431 million for local benefits programs to help cities, counties and townships improve local roads and support economic development;

• Provide funding for railroad crossing safety improvements throughout the state and

• Enhance highway safety as part of the department’s regular highway-improvement program by targeting specific fatal and severe crash locations and addressing statewide safety concerns.

Due to the uncertainty of gasoline revenues as well as increased transportation project costs worldwide, the FY 2010-2015 MYP focuses on maintaining the existing system. Over the last few years, the transportation industry has faced considerable increases in project costs due to the increase in materials such as steel, cement and asphalt causing nationwide and sometimes worldwide shortages. Higher project costs can also be attributed to increased fuel costs, which can lead to higher-than-expected bid prices. Until the passage of Governor Quinn’s Illinois Jobs Now! program, dramatic project cost increases, with little prospect for immediate relief, limited the department’s ability to add new projects to the road program.

The FY 2010-2015 state program can be summarized by four major priorities:

System Maintenance: $4.377 billion is scheduled for reconstruction, resurfacing/widening and safety projects. This includes $1.004 billion for Interstate resurfacing projects and $352 million for safety improvements.

Bridge Maintenance: $2.453 billion is scheduled to address bridge needs.

Congestion Mitigation: $1.514 billion is scheduled to address traffic congestion. This includes $480 million for a new bridge over the Mississippi River near East St. Louis and connecting roadways.

System Expansion: $99 million is scheduled mainly for pre-construction activity to build new roads to increase access and for economic development. Few new major projects were added in this category.

The entire FY 2010-2015 MYP is available online at the Illinois Department of Transportation Web site at www.dot.il.gov.

KTU Constructors Selected to Complete Missouri’s ‘Safe & Sound’ Bridge-Improvement Program

All the pieces are now in place to complete the “Safe & Sound” program - the single, largest bridge-improvement program in Missouri’s history.

The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission has selected KTU Constructors to replace 554 bridges across the state in the next four years through a design-build contract.

Combined with another 248 bridge projects that the Missouri Department of Transportation is completing with innovative contracting methods, Missourians will be driving across 802 new bridges by Oct. 31, 2014.

The commission deemed KTU’s proposal to build all 554 new bridges by the end of 2013 at a cost of $487 million to be the best value.

The full 802-bridge program is expected to cost $700 million.

MoDOT will sell bonds to finance the program, repaying them with annual payments of $50 million coming from the Federal bridge funds it receives each year.

Over the life of the project, the work will represent a savings of $500 million over the privately financed design-build-finance-maintain program, which the commission called “unaffordable” last fall. That plan would have required payments in the $65 to $74 million over 25 to30 years.

The KTU Constructors team is led by Kiewit Western Co., Traylor Bros. Inc., United Contractors, Inc., HNTB Corporation and The LPA Group, Inc.

The contractor will be responsible for design, construction, project management and public outreach for all 554 bridge projects, and it will be joined by several Missouri-based subcontractors and material suppliers.

“This is an exciting project and we are proud to have been entrusted with it. We have already begun the process of identifying Missouri subcontractors and suppliers because buying and hiring locally is going to be a high priority for us; along with our absolute commitment to building these bridges safely, on time and on budget.,” says KTU spokesman Kent Grisham. KTU’s bid was more than $31 million lower than a competing proposal.

Speed of construction and flexibility in construction schedules to respond to local issues are also critical components of MoDOT’s program requirements.

For 493 bridges on low-volume routes, the contract requires the average closure be no more than 45 days. The remaining 61 bridges will either be closed, built in stages, or use bypasses to minimize impact on motorists.

Work is expected to begin on some of the replacement projects later this summer.

Of the 248 rehabilitation projects, 20 are already completed and 29 are under construction.

As of late May, contracts had been awarded on 109 bridges, with bids coming in 30 percent under budget for a total savings of nearly $15 million.

The progress of the Safe & Sound bridge reconstruction program is detailed at www.modot.org/safeandsound.

New Union Pacific Railroad and Amtrak Track will Add Capacity and Reduce Delays of Amtrak Missouri’s ‘River Runner’ Trains

Representatives of the State of Missouri; the City of California, Mo.; Union Pacific Railroad and Amtrak today kicked off the construction of a new $8.1-million, 9,000-ft railroad side track to add capacity and reduce delays on the route used by Amtrak Missouri River Runner trains between Kansas City and St. Louis.

The new siding, located just west of California will unclog a major bottleneck caused by a 25-mi stretch of single track and enable slower freight trains to move off the main line allowing faster Amtrak trains to pass and annually reduce delays by nearly 17%.

“As the State of Missouri, Union Pacific and Amtrak break ground together on this project, it further represents our commitment to making the St. Louis to Kansas City rail corridor a more viable option for Missourians,” says Pete Rahn, director of the Missouri Department of Transportation.

“Improvements like this will ease congestion on the railroad tracks across Missouri and enhance our state’s quality of life by making passenger rail a more reliable option and increasing our global competitiveness as the flow of freight rail traffic improves,” Rahn adds.

“The Kansas City to St. Louis rail corridor has experienced such a steady growth in freight rail traffic over the years, that the corridor experienced capacity constraints. Union Pacific has invested more than $400 million since 1999 on this corridor in track capacity and maintenance projects,” says Shane Keller, Union Pacific Railroad’s assistant vice president – operations – Northern Region. “All of us at Union Pacific look forward to not only the completion of this project, but also what we hope will be more public/private partnerships like this one which benefits everyone across Missouri.”

“This kind of targeted capacity improvement can make a real difference in improving the on-time performance of Amtrak Missouri River Runner trains and make our service even more attractive,” says Mike Franke, Amtrak Assistant Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Business Development.

When finished in December 2009, the siding will accommodate the mi-and-a-half long Union Pacific coal trains that haul low-sulfur coal from Wyoming to electric utilities in the St. Louis area and eastern power generation facilities. MoDOT secured the funding for this project from state funds, complemented with a federal grant from the Federal Railroad Administration.

This location was chosen after a University of Missouri study estimated a siding in this area would annually reduce delays to Amtrak trains by nearly 17%. It was ranked as the first choice among three “bottlenecks” on the rail line between Kansas City and Jefferson City. The other locations are in the Knob Noster and Strasburg areas.

The study helped Union Pacific’s engineering and network planning groups make solid choices where capacity projects should be considered across the 275-mi rail corridor. MoDOT commissioned the study in 2006 in order to determine where rail line capacity enhancements should be made to improve train velocity.

Wisconsin Sees More Than $10 Million in Savings on Bids for Road and Bridge Projects

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle has announced that bids for the second round of Wisconsin road and bridge projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act came in 11.66% lower than expected, for a savings of over $10 million.

”Wisconsin is moving quickly to use federal recovery act funds to invest in projects that add long-term value to communities across the state,” Governor Doyle says. “The competitive bids that we have received for road and bridge projects represent significant savings for taxpayers. These projects will provide thousands of good-paying jobs this summer for our residents, and improve the quality of life in our state for generations to come.”

The total engineering estimate for the 38 state and local road and bridge projects let for bid near the end of May was $87 million. The low bids submitted totaled $77 million.

The April 28th bids for the first 26 state and 19 local road and bridge projects in Wisconsin came in 7.2% lower than expected for a savings of $8.9 million.

State law calls for construction contracts to be awarded to the lowest responsible bidder. Wisconsin Department of Transportation will review the bids for completeness and accuracy. Once comprehensive reviews have been completed, Governor Doyle executes and signs the contracts to allow work to begin.

The state intends to get construction underway on the state and local projects during this summer construction season.

Studies have shown that every $1 billion invested in highway construction supports approximately 42,000 jobs.

Geotechnology Inc. Wins Major Highway Project

Geotechnology Inc., a provider of consulting services in geotechnical and environmental engineering, materials testing and drilling, has been awarded a contract for work on a major highway project in southwest Missouri. Archer Western Contractor, Chicago, selected Geotechnology to provide professional services for work on the U.S. 60/65 project in Greene County .

The estimated $65-million project will improve traffic flow and safety at the U.S. 60/65 interchange in southeast Springfield for the next 20 years by providing the following:

• Building flyover ramps for the two busiest movements—northbound U.S. 65-to-westbound U.S. 60 and eastbound U.S. 60-to-northbound U.S. 65. This will eliminate the short weaving area on the northbound U.S. 65 bridge over U.S. 60;

• Building bridges for U.S. 60 and adjacent ramps over the BNSF railroad track serving the Springfield City Utilities power plant. High-speed traffic will no longer have to stop for coal trains at the crossing west of U.S. 65;

• Building new northbound and southbound U.S. 65 bridges and

• Widening and re-decking the eastbound and westbound U.S. 60 bridges over Lake Springfield and extending the ramp lanes onto the bridges.

Geotechnology’s scope of services will include drilling, settlement gauges, crosshole sonic logging and pile dynamic analysis. The project will be managed by the team in the firm’s Overland Park, Kan., office.

Indiana Resurfaces SR 61 in Warrick County

The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) has begun resurfacing S.R. 61 between State Road 62 (S.R. 62) in Boonville and State Road 68 (S.R. 68) in Lynnville. E & B Paving of Evansville, Ind., has the $1.65-million contract.

Crews will mill off the existing pavement and place new asphalt. During the milling and paving, one lane will be maintained at all times by flag persons. The overall contract completion date is December 2009.