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Roadbuilding

May 1, 2008

Government announces plans for $1.6-billion Windsor-Essex Parkway

The new Windsor-Essex Parkway will include two kilometres of tunnel sections, while the rest will be built below-grade to minimize traffic noise and exhaust in neighbourhoods. It will be five times more expensive per kilometre than any highway previously built in Ontario.

April 28, 2008

Rebar fall won’t delay Pitt River bridge job

Workers building the new Pitt River Bridge are assessing the damage and developing a plan for repairing the structure after a rebar column toppled.

April 14, 2008

TRIP Canada cheers record highway spending by provinces

Provinces are spending more on highways this year than ever before and six of them are setting record highs, according to TRIP Canada’s annual provincial highways budget report.

April 10, 2008

Floating bridge on British Columbia lake overcomes early delays

Motorists will be crossing Okanagan Lake on the new William R. Bennett Bridge sooner than expected.

March 28, 2008

Another Halifax harbour crossing urgently needed, bridge commission says

With Halifax’s population growth and associated traffic congestion, the two existing harbour spans need help from a new bridge or tunnel as early as 2016, the bridge commission said this week.

March 27, 2008

Boston’s Big Dig renders other U.S. cities wary of tunnel projects

If all had gone as planned, the mayor of Seattle would don a hard hat next year and break ground on a multibillion-dollar project to replace the city’s downtown overpass with a tunnel. But as Seattle debated its project, the Big Dig faced a variety of setbacks: spiralling costs and legal wrangling among contractors, including Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, and the tunnel accident that killed Milena del Valle of Jamaica Plain.

March 11, 2008

Boston crews reinforce Longfellow Bridge’s deteriorating beams

The Red Line thunders overhead as construction workers perched on a platform repair the gritty underbelly of the Longfellow Bridge, using bolts and clamps, cutting torches, and steel to patch the worn bridge piece by piece.

March 4, 2008

Workers celebrate Canada Line’s bored-tunnel breakthrough

The Canada Line rapid transit project that will run mostly underground between the Vancouver waterfront and the airport reached a major milestone last week when a tunnel boring machine broke through the ground into the future site of the Waterfront Station.

February 29, 2008

Paving time

Except during recent snow storms, it’s always paving time in Toronto, which means road closures and traffic headaches. But building and maintaining infrastructure is vital to the province’s economy.

February 29, 2008

Peat bog highway beds under intensive study

A peat bog might seem to be an unlikely place to build a highway interchange, but that’s exactly where the first bridge of an interchange near Seattle was built in 1940, and engineers with the state transportation department have been living with it ever since.

February 29, 2008

Meeting environment regulations can be planned

Finding ways in which road builders can plan for and work within environmental regulations is the goal of a new Road Building Academy environmental course.

February 29, 2008

Hybrid trucks gaining attention as new fleet option

It’s big. It’s ugly. It has a unique electric drive train called ProPulse. And it could point the way for on and off-road hauling in the future. It’s called HEMTT A3, it’s ready for full production, and it’s about to enter service with the U.S. military.

February 29, 2008

Filmport paving

Furfari Paving Co. Ltd. lays down some fresh asphalt at phase one of the Filmport complex, part of the Toronto Film Studios project.

February 29, 2008

Give trades’ compulsory certification a lot more thought

While the media snoozed through the winter, preoccupied with snow storms and a new holiday that didn’t work out perfectly in its first run-through, public consultations have been going on that could conceivably lead to legislation that would require all construction tradespeople to be certified.

February 29, 2008

Commuter traffic will gain new corridor as work done daily underfoot and undercover

Under ground and under the radar of passersby, a $40 million Simcoe Street tunnel extension has required military precision to build in one of North America’s busiest railway corridors.

February 29, 2008

Paver of the Year Miller Northwest takes outstanding honour

Miller Northwest Limited took home top honours at the Ontario Ministry of Transportation’s (MTO) Paver of The Year Awards, presented at the annual convention of the Ontario Road Builders’ Association (ORBA).

February 29, 2008

Safety Awards

Routly Safety awards were presented at the recent ORBA conference.

February 29, 2008

Corridor Manager will be ‘go to’ for projects

Acting on a suggestion by the Ontario Road Builders Association (ORBA), the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) has agreed to create a new supervisory position — Corridor Manager — for long-term Highways 69 and 11 projects in northeastern Ontario.

February 29, 2008

MTO considers applying international quality index

The International Roughness Index (IRI) has been used by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) for more than a decade as an internal benchmark for the smoothness of the province’s road surfaces.

February 29, 2008

Peers laud Steed, Evans for stellar contributions

Newly-minted Ontario Road Building Hall of Fame members Roy Steed and Denis Evans not only made their mark in business, they also broke new ground in employer-employee relationships.

February 22, 2008

Quebec to spend $12 billion on roads and bridges

The Quebec government has announced that it will spend $12 billion over the next four years to renovate, rebuild and construct new highways and bridges, including $2.7 billion in the 2008 construction season.

February 20, 2008

Infrastructure Investment Coalition greets Statistics Canada’s report on aging public infrastructure with reservation

Despite a Statistics Canada study that shows the age of public infrastructure is declining, a municipal infrastructure gap of $123 billion still exists, Infrastructure Investment Coalition officials say. Coalition member and Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario executive director Andy Manahan maintains that the report’s statistics “can be misleading.”