APRIL 2010 PARSONS BRINCKERHOFF

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north and south america new York + 1-212-465-5000 euroPe/africa london + 44-(0)20-7337-1700 middle east duBai + 971-4-360-0090 asia hong kong + 852-2579-8899 australia sYdneY + 61-2-9272-5100

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2

NotesTUNNELING

TO THE FUTURE

Notes • 1

From its beginning, tunneling has been a specialty of Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB). As it celebrates its 125th year of continuous operation in 2010, PB remains a leader in underground construction through its

participation in tunneling projects from New York to Newcastle.

In the early years of the 20th century, PB’s founder, William Barclay Parsons, pioneered the use of cut-and-cover tunneling for the New York City subway, and Parsons’s subway also included an early application of the immersed tube method to take the subway under the Harlem River.

PB advanced immersed tunnel design through the 20th century with such projects as the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel (completed in 1930); the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnels in Virginia (1957 and 1976); the BART tunnel under San Francisco Bay (1969), then the longest and deepest immersed tunnel in the world; and Baltimore’s Fort McHenry Tunnel (1985), at the time the widest immersed tunnel in the world. Most recently, PB contributed to the design of an immersed tunnel under the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul that is the deepest immersed tunnel ever built and was designed to withstand earthquakes in a highly seismic area.

The Bosphorus tunnel connects Europe with Asia, two of the four continents where PB is now active in tunneling. A strong area of tunnel practice is Australia, where PB has been on the teams building road and rail tunnels in Sydney and Brisbane that are among the largest infrastructure projects in the past decade. In Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK, PB is part of the design team for a second vehicular tunnel under the River Tyne. In China, PB provided technical advice for tunnels that are part of two high-speed rail lines being built to connect Zhengzhou with Xi’an and Shijiazhuang with Taiyuan.

In the U.S., PB is owner’s representative for a tunnel under the Port of Miami and contributed to the design and construction of tunnels for transit systems in Seattle and Los Angeles that opened in 2009. And in the city where PB tunneling began more than a century ago, PB is instrumental in four major expansions of New York’s public transportation system that involve new tunnels beneath the busy streets of Manhattan and under the Hudson River.

The spirit of innovation that began with Parsons continues today with PB’s advances in tunneling technology, including improved methods for tunneling through unstable or contaminated soil … designing tunnels to withstand earthquakes and explosions … constructing deep mined caverns … ventilating underground spaces … and furthering the use of tunnel boring machines and mechanized excavations.

As the science of tunneling progresses in the 21st century, PB will surely be there, continuing a tradition of innovation and technical excellence that began 125 years ago.

George J. Pierson President and Chief Executive Officer Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc.

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Letterfrom theCEO

28Light RaiL LiNe a BooN to east Los aNgeLes 30WRitiNg the Book oN tuNNeLiNg

Ground Improvement

32keepiNg ChiNa’s high-speed RaiL pRogRam oN tRaCk

34Notes oN pRojeCts

36Notes oN the FiRm

oN the CoveRStation cavern below Grand Central Terminal, MTA LIRR East Side Access project © 2009 David Sailors

Editorial BoardGeorge J. Pierson Stuart GlennDavid McAlisterRichard A. SchraderChuck KohlerJudy Cooper

Executive EditorTom Malcolm

EditorSusan Walsh

ContributorsMuriel AdamsDan AltanoLeon ErlangerCharlotte ForbesJulie JohnsonTerry KuflikTom MalcolmKathy MontvidasGeorge MunfakhJudith RaymondSusan Walsh

Graphics Services ManagerRichard Mangini

Graphic DesignGary Hessberger

Director of Corporate CommunicationsJudy Cooper

Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc.One Penn PlazaNew York, NY 101191-212-465-5000www.pbworld.compbinfo@pbworld.com

NOTES is published three times a year by PB for the employees, affiliates and friends of PB. Please contact the Executive Editor in the New York office for permission to reprint articles.

© 2010 Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc. All rights reserved.

Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB), founded in 1885, is recognized as a leader in strategic consulting, planning, engineering, program management, construction management, and operations and maintenance for all types of infrastructure. PB has approximately 14,000 people worldwide in more than 150 offices on six continents. Parsons Brinckerhoff is part of Balfour Beatty plc, the international infrastructure Group operating in professional services, construction services, support services and infrastructure investments.

2tRaNsit optioNs expaNdiNg iN NeW YoRk aNd NeW jeRseY

Cut-and-Cover Tunnels

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12deep CRossiNg is high poiNt FoR istaNBuL

14tuNNeLiNg to suppoRt hYdRoeLeCtRiC poWeR

Mined/Bored Tunnels

16tuNNeLiNg to the FutuRe iN NeWCastLe upoN tYNe

Immersed Tunnels

20CLeaNiNg WateR ResouRCes

Water Conveyance Tunnels

24impRoviNg poRt aCCess iN miami

26tuNNeL iNNovatioNs: Light aNd aiR

Inside

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Notes • 3

In New York’s most significant growth in commuter rail and subway service in decades, projects are in progress to increase commuter rail service from New Jersey and Long Island and expand sub-way service in Manhattan.

Trans-Hudson ExpressNearly 170,000 people travel to and from New Jersey and Manhattan each day—relying upon a century-old, two-track rail tunnel under the Hudson River that is operating at capacity. A delay on one train sets off a ripple effect throughout the rush hour, delaying travelers on both sides of the Hudson River. Responding to increasing demand, New Jersey Transit and the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey are constructing the Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel Project.

PB is the managing partner of a joint venture (THE Partnership) provid-ing final design engineer-ing including tunnel, civil, geotechnical, structural, sys-tems and facilities engineer-ing; architectural design; project controls; environ-mental services; and quality assurance. The joint venture is also providing design sup-port during construction.

The project includes three major tunnel seg-ments being delivered under design-build contracts: a tunnel in Manhattan running from the Hudson River east to Sixth Avenue; a tunnel under the Palisades to the existing Northeast Corridor line in New Jersey; and two single-track tunnels under the Hudson River. In Manhattan, a new station cavern will be built as an expansion to the existing New York Penn Station. Construction began in June 2009 with the first underpass proj-ect to allow the new trainway to pass under an existing state highway leading to the new tunnel portal in New Jersey. In November and December 2009, New Jersey

Transit received bids for the contract for the construction of the respective Manhattan and Palisades tunnels.

Mining to construct the extension of Penn Station, according to Project Manager Richard Fischer, is particularly challeng-ing. “We’ll be excavating a 96-foot-wide cavern between Sixth and Eighth avenues under 34th Street—one of the busi-est streets in New York City,” he says. “We’ll also have to build new street entrances through

existing buildings leading down to the new

station while maintaining access to existing buildings.”

First, the team had to find locations where exploration holes could be bored

through the congested subsurface utility infrastructure that is typical for New York City. Subsurface rock con-ditions were evaluated to identify the rock characteristics and anticipat-ed rock behaviors. Then, they identi-fied the appropriate temporary rock

support requirements until such time as

permanent linings are constructed. When complete in 2018, the Trans-

Hudson Express Tunnel Project will double commuter rail capacity between New Jersey and New York and provide more riders with transfer-free rides to Manhattan. The expansion of Penn Station will also provide underground connec-tions to PATH train service, Amtrak, the Long Island Rail Road and 14 New York

City subway lines including, for the first time, the eight lines at Herald Square/Sixth Avenue.

Relieving Congestion on the East Side

The Lexington Avenue subway line serving the East Side of Manhattan

is operating

at capacity. A long-held dream of adding a subway to Second Avenue is coming true with the Second Avenue Subway. Work is under way on Phase I of the project, a 2.4-kilometer (1.5-mile) section between 96th Street and 63rd Street. In subsequent phases of the project, the line will be extended south to Lower Manhattan and north to 125th Street.

PB, under the direction of Tom Peyton, is leading a team that is providing construction management services.

Much of the two-track line will be built using tunnel boring technology with cut-and-cover used at the 96th Street sta-tion locations. Mining is being used on

TRANSIT OPTIONS EXPANDING IN NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY

Transit in the New York City

metropolitan area is expanding as fast as

tunnel boring machines can move through

the complex geology below the surface,

and on busy streets above, as fast as the

associated work can be completed.

New tracks and platforms will be added to New York’s Penn Stationin a new mined cavern under 34th Street.

2 • NotesRichard Fischer

Tom Peyton

Rendering of a new Penn Station cavern in Manhattan.

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4 • Notes Notes • 5

two station caverns at 86th and 72nd streets and portions that are too short to make tun-nel boring cost-effective. The geology of the Upper East Side of Manhattan also poses interesting challenges for the team, accord-ing to Peyton. “We have hills and valleys, Manhattan schist and a great mixture of unpredictable and variable sands and silts—not to mention fault lines!”

Work is taking place in several loca-tions along Second Avenue. At 92nd Street, a tunnel boring machine (TBM) launch box is being excavated. Blasting has been going on since November 2009. Nearby utilities and buildings of varying ages—some more than 100 years old—mean that the work requires extreme care. “We watch the amount of explosives in every blast to minimize the vibration, and blasts are covered by blast mats to contain and prevent the shot rock from escaping and damaging nearby pipes,” says Peyton. “Most significantly, we put a 30-inch gas pipe inside a 42-inch steel carrier pipe to give it protection from blasts.” Farther south, work shafts are being constructed to support the eventual mining of the 72nd Street and 86th Street stations.

Above ground, Second Avenue is a busy and wide thoroughfare with older townhouses and high-rise residential towers as well as many retail and dining establish-ments. During construction, at least four lanes remain open to traffic and efforts are made to maintain access to businesses and residences. Structural and ground improve-

ment techniques are used to minimize ground settlement and to preserve the struc-tural integrity of various facilities, including utility lines, buildings, tunnels and ramps.

New Stop for the Long Island Rail Road Currently, the majority of the 270,000 com-muters who use the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) arrive at Penn Station on the West Side of Manhattan. Approximately half of them have to backtrack to the East Side via subway or on foot. The East Side Access project will change this for many riders, bringing LIRR service to Grand Central Terminal on the East Side.

LIRR trains will enter Manhattan from Queens via the existing 63rd Street Tunnel under the East River and then travel under Park Avenue to Grand Central. The 63rd Street Tunnel, designed by PB and complet-ed in 1974, is a double-decked four-quadrant tunnel with the upper quadrants now used by New York City Transit subway trains. The LIRR will use the lower quadrants.

PB is the managing partner of the joint venture designing the project as well as pro-viding design services during construction.

Jerry Forman, PB Project Manager, reports that the project is progressing in several areas in Queens and Manhattan, both below and above ground. At the Harold Interlocking in Queens, the team is preparing to connect existing service to the 63rd Street Tunnel. To do this, four tunnels with a total length of 3,050 meters (10,000

feet) will be bored through soft ground using a pressurized-face TBM.

The work in Queens requires care-ful coordination because it takes place at the busiest railroad interchange in the U.S. and outside the Woodside Station, the last stop in Queens for several major lines. “At Harold, three new tunnels will be bored into a major open-cut excavation construct-ed by slurry walls, then under an operating subway through frozen ground, finally con-necting to the existing 63rd Street Tunnel,” says Forman. “A fourth tunnel, which will lead to the storage yard, will have to tra-verse under the interlocking.” All this work requires redesign of the interlocking above ground to provide space for the tunnels and the connection of the new tracks.

All work in Queens must be carried out while maintaining daily train service. “The LIRR’s service delivery is only as good as the last rush hour,” says Forman. “Maintaining that service is a high priority of the project.”

In Manhattan, the teams face typi-

cal hard-rock conditions for the island, where two TBMs are tunneling through 9,750 meters (32,000 feet). The alignment in Manhattan resumes at 63rd Street and Second Avenue with two new hard-rock tunnels that will transition to four and then eight tunnels under Park Avenue, terminating below the existing Grand Central Terminal.

Construction of the two caverns for the additional station space at Grand Central Terminal is under way and will be the largest passenger terminal con-structed in the United States since 1930. “Traditional drill-and-blast construction techniques supplemented with road

header excavation will be used

to create the caverns,” says Forman. “Each

will be 1,200 feet long, 60 feet

wide and 60 feet high. Within each

cavern will be

two platforms serving four trains.” When complete in 2016, the new eight-

track terminal of the LIRR at Grand Central Terminal will not only provide direct service

to the East Side of Manhattan but also allow the LIRR to add service from key locations on Long Island and free up track space at Penn Station on the West Side.

Jerry Forman

Mezzanine level construction on the No. 7 Subway Line Extension.

Preparation for a tunnel boring machine launch box on Second Avenue.

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6 • Notes

Reaching the Far West SideIn Manhattan, construction is under way on the No. 7 Subway Line Extension. The project will extend the No. 7 Line from its current terminus at Times Square to a new station at 34th Street and 11th Avenue, located in an area known as Hudson Yards. When com-pleted in 2013, the No. 7 Line will make it easier to reach the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and the Far West Side of Manhattan and support future development of the area, which was recently rezoned for residential, commercial and cultural use.

Currently, PB is providing final design services to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority under the direction of Project Manager Peter Wahl. Work includes design of all civil, structural, architectural, mechanical, electri-cal and communications elements; preparation of all contract documents; and design support during con-

struction. PB’s previous contributions to the project included alternative alignment stud-ies, conceptual designs and preparation of an environmental impact statement.

“The development of the Hudson Yards area involves a number of private and public projects,” says Wahl, “and the No. 7 project is at the heart of it all, so one of the more challenging aspects of the project includes coordinating designs and schedules.” Proposed projects in the area include residential and commercial devel-opments, renovations at the Jacob K. Javits

Convention Center, utility service improvements and the construction of a new boulevard and park.

As with other major transit projects in New York City, tun-neling is taking place beneath

busy city streets and in proximity to existing structures, and in some

cases, near other major transit lines. “The two 22-foot tunnel

boring machines started excavating at the south end of the

alignment at 25th Street in mid-2009 and broke through the future 34th Street wall in December,” says Wahl. “Currently, one is in the turn approaching 41st Street and the other has completed the turn and is excavating below West 41st Street.”

The station at 34th Street and 11th Avenue is unusually deep for a New York City subway station, most of which are near the surface. The deepest point of the station structure will be about 40 meters (130 feet) below street level. “The station is as deep as it is because the tunnel align-ment needs to be below existing tunnels which run perpendicular to the No. 7 alignment,” says Wahl. “These include the three Lincoln Tunnel vehicular tubes locat-ed just north of the station structure and the Amtrak North River rail tunnel located just south of the station structure.”

When completed, the Trans-Hudson Express, Second Avenue Subway, East Side Access and No. 7 Line Extension will pro-vide more opportunities for commuters, residents and visitors to get around the city faster and easier than ever. n

THE HISTORY OF TUNNELING AT PB

From the first segment of the New York City subway, for which William Barclay Parsons, the founder of the firm, was Chief Engineer, to the firm’s current work designing and managing

construction of extensions to that system, PB has participated in the design and construction of some of the longest, largest, deepest and

most complicated tunnels in the world. Our tunnels have been built in hard rock, soft ground or mixed-face conditions,

using mining, boring, jacking, cut-and-cover, and immersed tube technology.

Cut-and-Cover TunnelsOne of the earliest uses of cut-and-cover tunneling in the United States was in connection with the initial segment of the New York City subway, which

opened in 1904. To reduce the construction cost and schedule, and facilitate quick entry and exit of passengers from the subway, Parsons elected to build shallow tunnels using cut-and-cover technology, which was ideally suited to the geology of Manhattan,

as opposed to the deep mined tunnels of the London Underground, the world’s first subway.

Parsons developed a means of cut-and-cover tunneling in which one side of the street was excavated,

the tunnel box constructed inside, and then covered up and opened to normal traffic while work proceeded on the other half of the street.

From the early 20th century to today, PB has refined and improved cut-and-cover techniques so that subways can be constructed with minimal adverse impact on buildings, utilities, neighborhoods and the environment. A few examples: • Pioneering use of the SPTC (soldier pile-tremie concrete) wall on San Francisco’s BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) in the 1960s allowed deep excavation in a highly seismic urban area. • Design of slurry walls as permanent structures allowed the Harvard Square Station in Cambridge, Massachusetts, constructed in the 1970s, to be shoehorned between two

buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. • First use of jet grouting on a subway system, which allowed Baltimore Metro’s Shot Tower Station to be constructed without interrupting high-voltage electric lines that cross the excavation.• Design of a combination of slurry diaphragm walls and jet-grout walls at the 63rd Street Queens Connector in New York City allowed safe underground construction in the vicinity of contaminated plumes. n

From Parsons to the Present:Editor’s Note: PB marks its 125th year of continuous operation in 2010. Tunneling has always been integral to the firm’s operations, beginning with William Barclay Parsons’s design of the original New York City subway. As part of its observance of PB’s 125th anniversary, NOTES asked George Munfakh (left), Director of PB’s Geotechnical & Tunneling Technical Excellence Center, to review PB’s history in tunneling. Munfakh’s report begins below and continues throughout the issue, covering various tunneling technologies including cut-and-cover, immersed tunnels, mined/bored tunnels and geotechnical innovation.

BART, San Francisco

63rd St. Connector, New York

New York City Subway

Peter Wahl Notes • 7

Cavern construction on the No. 7 Subway Line Extension: location of future platform and tracks at 34th Street and 11th Avenue.

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In 2008, PB teamed with Arup for the detailed design of the Airport Link and Northern Busway projects in Brisbane and completed the reference design of the Sydney Central Business District and West Metro projects in Sydney.

“PB’s tunneling team in Australia has grown from a handful of people in Sydney in 2003 to approximately 75 engineers spread across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Auckland,” says Charlie Jewkes, General Manager, Geotechnical, Tunnels and Geospatial for PB Australia-Pacific.

Whether for highways or rail transit, tunneling is key to constructing new con-nections for major cities in Australia.

Epping to Chatswood Rail LinkSydney’s US$2.1 billion Epping to Chatswood Rail Link opened in February 2009, providing for the first time rail services to a fast-growing education and employ-

ment hub in Sydney’s northern suburbs. The rail line connects the existing North Shore Line at Chatswood, a satellite com-mercial and residential area north of Sydney’s central business district, with the existing Northern Line at Epping, an established suburban residential area northwest of Sydney.

The Epping to Chatswood Rail Link is expected to reduce traffic congestion, improve air quality and free up capac-ity on Sydney CityRail’s congested Western Line. Since it started operation, the new link’s week-day ridership has averaged 10,000 passengers per day.

“The project is unique in that the majority of the new line is underground with all new sta-tions built within rock caverns,” says PB Principal Structural Engineer Jim Nelson. The route com-

prises 12.5 kilometers (7.8 miles) of rail con-structed 15-60 meters (49-197 feet) below ground, including three new underground stations and new underground platforms at the existing Epping Station.

At the time it was announced, the Epping to Chatswood Rail Link was the larg-est publicly funded infrastructure project in New South Wales. PB’s involvement started in 1996, when it prepared a planning report, conducted community consultation and per-

formed preliminary ridership model-ing. In 2002, PB, as a subconsul-tant to GHD, began the detailed design of the station

PB BRINGS TUNNEL KNOW-HOWTO AUSTRALIAN TRANSPORTATION

The past eight years have seen a boom in

transportation investment in Australia. PB has played

a key role, contributing to the Epping to Chatswood

Rail Link, and providing lead design of the Lane Cove

Tunnel in Sydney and the design of the Clem Jones

Tunnel (CLEM7) in Brisbane.

8 • Notes

The Epping to Chatswood Rail Link in Sydney (also on left) serves the Macquarie Park business district and Macquarie University.

Charlie Jewkes and Jim Nelson

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Notes • 9

10 • Notes Notes • 11

of that size presented several challenges in the logistics of setting up, launching and retrieving machines of that scale, as well as providing ventilation for the construction workers and spoil handling as the boring took place,” says Jewkes.

Tunnel construction was completed in May 2009 and the project opened in March 2010.

The new route bypasses 24 sets of traffic lights and shortens travel from south to north by 30 percent.

Airport LinkThe second TransApex tunnel project is the US$4.3 billion Airport Link.

The project has three parts. A 6.7-kilo-meter (4.2-mile) toll road, most of which is underground, will link the central busi-ness district of Brisbane with the northern suburbs and the airport. The project also includes construction of the Northern Busway, a road tunnel dedicated to bus traffic that links Windsor to Kedron in the north, and the upgrading of a roundabout near the airport to a three-level intersection that features a new flyover bridge.

The 5-kilometer (3-mile) tunnels include 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) of three-lane tunnels in each direction and 2 kilo-meters (1.2 miles) of two-lane tunnels. There are also complex intersections at the tunnel portals located at Bowen Hills, Kedron and Toombul. Digging the tunnels will require TBMs for the east-west tunnels and mined tunnels for the intersections and north-south tunnels.

“These are large tunnels running at shallow depths through complex geology with many different sets of conditions,” says PB Project Director Luke Van Heuzen. “We’ve had to consider all the different conditions we expect to encounter very carefully and vary support types accord-ing to the encountered conditions using rockbolts, sprayed concrete lining, canopy tubes and sequential excava-tion techniques.”

Like CLEM7, the Airport Link will take traffic off

the surface road network, allowing motor-ists to bypass the downtown area. “There will be significantly improved access to the airport from the central business dis-trict,” says Van Heuzen, “eliminating up to 18 sets of traffic lights and reducing a trip that can take up to an hour down to as little as 10 minutes. We’ll also be creating a lot of new green space from the land adjacent to the project.”

PB is part of a design joint venture with Arup (PBAJV), which is contracted to Thiess John Holland, the design and construction joint venture. The proj-ect is financed by a consortium called

BrisConnections, which will build and then operate the tunnel and collect tolls for 45 years, with the state government paying for an additional busway and air-port roundabout upgrade adjacent to the Airport Link Project.

The PBAJV includes more than 500 designers and will provide design and project certification through construction, including tunneling, road, geotechni-cal, electrical, mechanical, structural and drainage design.

The contract was awarded in May 2008, with an expected completion date in mid-2012. n

During construction of the Airport Link mined tunnel, workers use drill rigs to install bolts to support the excavation.

caverns, running tunnels and structural components (excluding certain structures designed by third party subconsultants to the design-build contractor). At the time, the underground station caverns were the largest ever constructed in Sydney using permanent rock bolts.

The project used an international team, with design of three main station caverns, including excavation and waterproofing, led by Tim Smirnoff of PB’s Los Angeles office. The new underground platforms constructed below the existing Epping Station, designed by Doug Maconochie, have a binocular con-figuration of station platforms and complex escalator, lift and service shafts constructed beneath an operating surface station.

“The design of the station caverns called for wide-span arch roofed caverns rather than the flat roof or trapezoidal-shaped sections typical for Hawkesbury sandstone,” says Maconochie. “There was no precedent for wide-span arched con-struction in Hawkesbury sandstone, but our study found that the architectural arch shape was technically feasible.” The cav-ern roofs were supported with rock bolts

and shotcrete both in the temporary and permanent design.

“The station caverns have a unique, asymmetrical arch shape that was chosen to minimize excavation and provide an aes-thetically pleasing feature,” says Maconochie.

CLEM7 TunnelSouth-East Queensland is the fastest-grow-ing metropolitan area in Australia and one of the busiest. In 2004 the Lord Mayor of Brisbane promoted a plan to build a system of five highway bypasses that would allow more rapid movement in and around Brisbane. Called the TransApex Plan, it was to be largely financed by public-private partnerships.

CLEM7, formally known as the North-South Bypass Tunnel, is named after influ-ential Brisbane politician Clem Jones and the M7 designation for the route. It was the first of five projects slated for construc-tion and widely considered the most urgent. CLEM7 will connect the northern and southern

parts of Brisbane. An underground junc-tion will also provide access to the south-eastern Brisbane suburbs.

In 2005, the public-private partnership tendering process began and PB aligned itself with partners in a design-construc-tion-finance consortium called RiverCity Motorway, which in turn contracted the design and construction to the Leighton Contractors and Baulderstone Hornibrook Bilfinger Berger Joint Venture (LBB JV). LBB JV, with PB acting as lead designer in joint venture with AECOM, submitted the winning tender in 2005.

Two 5-kilometer (3-mile) tunnels, one each for northbound and south-

bound traffic, and each with two lanes, will take drivers under the Brisbane River. Most of the length of both tunnels has been constructed using hard-rock double-shield tunnel boring machines (TBMs) with

a diameter of 12.4 meters (41 feet)—among the largest TBMs

ever used in Australia.“Using TBMs

The CLEM7 Tunnel, also known as the North-South Bypass Tunnel, opened in March 2010.

Luke Van HeuzenDoug Maconochie

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Typical sequential excavation methods adopted at portals.

Notes • 13

Relief through RailModern Istanbul has outgrown its transpor-tation network, placing a crushing burden on its streets, bridges, ferries and rail lines. Crossing the Bosphorus by bridge requires motorists to spend up to an hour in traffic. A well-developed rail system is expected to significantly reduce Istanbul’s traffic congestion and the associated air pollution. The trip beneath the Bosphorus by train will take only four minutes.

In addition to the 1.4-kilometer (0.9-mile) immersed tunnel, the Marmaray Project encompasses bored and cut-and-cover tunnels beneath the city, four new underground stations, 37 new or upgraded surface stations, and 250 kilometers (155 miles) of new track.

PB was originally commissioned by the Turkish Ministry of Transport in 1985 to conduct a feasibility study for the Bosphorus Crossing. Since 2002, PB has worked in association with Avrasyaconsult, the joint venture responsible for design-build development of the Marmaray Project. PB led the immersed tunnel design and provided construction supervision and inspection. Other significant PB contribu-tions to the overall project include electrical and mechanical design, station architecture, hydraulics, and marine environmental ser-vices, as well as seismic, geotechnical and rail analysis, and design review.

Into the DeepConstructing the immersed tunnel involved fabricating tunnel segments off-site, floating them into place and lowering them into a trench at the bottom of the strait—while working in a busy international waterway. The segments were joined with rubber

gaskets and the trench backfilled over the tunnel. The tunnel has 11 rectangular segments, or elements, each roughly 135

meters (443 feet) long, with a separate tube for each track

direction.

At its deepest point, the Bosphorus Crossing reaches 58 meters (190 feet). “It is two to three times deeper than most similar immersed tunnels, which introduced significant design and construction chal-lenges,” explains Christian Ingerslev, who led PB’s tunnel design services. “In fact, at that depth, water pressure alone is a sig-nificant design consideration.”

Due to the site’s proximity to the active North Anatolian Fault, the tunnel is designed to withstand a 7.5 magnitude earthquake. Some of the ground beneath the tunnel had to be stabilized against liquefaction—the sudden transformation of ground to liquid as earthquake tremors force groundwater up through unstable soils. Grout columns—2,778 in all—were injected to stabilize the soil. A special gravel foundation blanket was placed in the bottom of the trench to allow any seis-mic water pressures to escape quickly from beneath the tunnel.

A Delicate Touch in a Turbulent SeaFloating tunnel elements into position and lowering and joining them perfectly relies on precise science.

“The currents in the Bosphorus are savage and difficult to predict, with strong freshwater currents at the surface and a dense saltwater bottom current flowing in the opposite direction,” explains Walter Grantz, who served as PB’s Project Manager for the original feasibility study and also as Construction Inspector. The team collected data on weather and currents for more than a year and developed a computer model to help determine when conditions might be favorable for the 11-hour tow from the fab-rication site to the mouth of the Bosphorus.

Each segment was outfitted with an array of monitors. “Virtually every param-eter had a digital or graphic readout in the control cab of the placing barge,” Grantz says. After the placing barge was anchored in position, the element was lowered slow-ly as adjustments were made to the ballast and anchor lines. “Currents could increase unexpectedly, and large ships might gener-ate sudden wakes,” Grantz says.

To join two elements, a crew inside the previously placed tunnel extended a

large hydraulic jack to pull the element in tightly and form an initial seal. Next, pumps reduced the water pressure in the joint space to atmospheric pressure. Because the water pressure surrounding the element was five times greater than atmospheric pressure, the force compressed a rubber gasket between elements and completely sealed the joint. Later, a reinforced concrete connection—designed to resist seismic loads—was made across the joint. A special grout mixture was pumped between the gravel blanket and ele-ment to complete the foundation.

The final element was placed in September 2008.

Toward Completion“Because Istanbul was the capital of three great empires—Eastern Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman—work has been halted at various times to protect archeological treasures, including the remains of a fourth century seaport,” says Bruce Esdon, who succeeded Daniel Horgan as PB’s Electrical and Mechanical Design and Construction Supervisor and is now managing PB’s remaining work. “With tunneling project-wide coming to completion, attention has turned to the electrical and mechanical work and railway systems.”

The Marmaray Project is scheduled to open on October 29, 2013—Turkey’s National Day and the birthday of Kemal Atatürk, the first president of the Republic of Turkey. n

DEEP CROSSING IS HIGH POINTFOR ISTANBUL

The world’s deepest immersed tunnel has

been placed beneath the Bosphorus Strait

in Istanbul, Turkey, connecting Europe and

Asia and concluding a major phase of the

Marmaray Project, a 76-kilometer (47-mile)

system of new and upgraded railway on both

sides of the Bosphorus.

Tunnel segments were fabricated off-site and floated into place in the busy and turbulent waters of the Bosphorus Strait.

12 • Notes

A TBM was used for some sections of tunnel beneath Istanbul.

Christian Ingerslev

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Mined/Bored TunnelsPB’s earliest mined tunnels were designed by William Barclay Parsons for the New York subway in the 1890s. Sections of mined tunnel included a 3.2-kilometer- (2-mile-) long tunnel in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan and a stretch along Park Avenue. For the Steinway (Queensboro) Tunnel under the East River, Parsons decided to go deep and use mined tunneling. He erected a large working platform on a rock outcrop in the East River, sunk two shafts from the rock island as well as shafts on each bank of the river, and drove four headings at once. The tunnel, through which the No. 7 train now travels, was completed in 1907.

A mined tunnel under the Scheldt River in Antwerp, Belgium, built in the early 1930s, posed

unusual challenges, including dif-ficult ground conditions. To facilitate excavation of a deep shaft from which

mining of the tunnel would begin, the saturated and running soil was frozen, an innovative concept considered novel even by today’s standards. Despite the many challenges, the firm completed the

job in just 18 months.In the 1980s, on behalf of the Canadian

Pacific Railroad Company, PB designed the Mount Macdonald Tunnel, a 15-kilometer-

(9-mile-) long rock tunnel that crosses Rogers Pass in Western Canada and was, at the time, the longest tunnel in the Western Hemisphere.

Vehicular mined tunnels to which PB made significant contributions include the Glenwood Canyon Tunnel in Colorado (1992); the Tetsuo Harano tunnels of Hawaii’s H-3 highway (1994); and the Cumberland Gap Tunnel in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia (1996). All three featured context-sensitive designs that met strict environmental requirements.

Mined CavernsDuring the Cold War, PB pioneered

methods for the creation of large underground spaces for military fortresses. The firm’s work in this area began

in the late 1940s with the design of a hardened underground defense facility at Fort Ritchie, in the Catoctin Mountains near Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, and culminated in the early 1960s with NORAD (North American Air Defense Command Center), an underground cavern deep within Cheyenne Mountain outside Colorado Springs, Colorado, comprising six huge chambers and several tunnels designed to sustain nuclear attack. Recently, mined caverns have been designed by PB for construction of transit stations or underground storage. n

THE HISTORY OF TUNNELING AT PB

New York City Subway,

c. 1906

Cumberland Gap Tunnel, Kentucky/Tennessee/Virginia

Glenwood Canyon Tunnel,Colorado

Notes • 15

TUNNELING TO SUPPORT HYDROELECTRIC POWER

The first-ever tunnel boring machine to be launched in Laos is helping to construct an expansion of a hydropower plant.

The future portal of the proposed tunnel that will support a hydropower plant on the Mpanga RIver in Uganda.

An Australian-based team of experts in tunneling for hydropow-er projects is working with various power specialists across PB on tunnels associated with hydropower projects worldwide.

In Uganda, PB is providing tunnel construction advice to the developer of a small run-of-river 18-MW hydropower plant at the Mpanga River near Kamwenge. The hard-rock, drill-and-blast tunnel is 4 meters (13 feet) wide by 3.8 meters (12.5 feet) high and relatively short at 103 meters (338 feet) long. Its purpose is to avoid having to traverse around a steep cliff-face that would have caused environmental disturbance to a pristine forest comprising a colony of rare Cycad plants that is also an important habitat to primates. The tunnel will carry an open-topped headrace channel for transfer of river water from the diversion weir to the powerhouse. Tunneling is due for completion by mid-2010 and the plant is scheduled to be operational by late 2010.

“Normally a hydropower plant of this capacity would serve about 20,000 homes, but given the lower electrical demand per household in Uganda it could be equivalent to more than 50,000 homes,” according to Andy Noble, PB Project Manager.

In Laos, the Theun Hinboun Hydropower Project, located on the Nam Theun and Nam Hinboun river basins in Borikhamsay Province, is being expanded.

PB is providing advice to a consortium of lenders for the expansion, which requires that a tunnel be constructed to divert water to a powerhouse. “A 5.5-kilometer-long headrace tunnel is being constructed using the first TBM to be launched in Laos,” says Singapore-based Brian Allan, PB’s Project Manager. Also serving on this project is Andy Noble of PB’s Sydney office, working with PB power experts from Singapore, New Zealand and Australia.

Construction on the tunnel began in February 2010. When complete in mid-2012, the Theun Hinboun expansion will more than double the generating capacity from 220 MW to 500 MW. The project will provide power to neighboring Thailand.

For proposed projects in Australia, the team has worked on concept and pre-feasibility study designs for pumped storage hydro-power schemes involving complex arrangements of underground cav-

erns and a variety of high-pressure tunnels and shafts. n

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Notes • 17

The first tunnel under the River Tyne was opened in 1951—a pedestrian and bicycle route that gave workers better access to jobs in the shipbuilding industry on both banks of the river. A 1967 vehicular tunnel, an engineering marvel in its time, alleviated congestion on local bridges. Today, the aging tunnel carries the busy A19 highway beneath the river, and more capacity is needed.

New Tyne Crossing In November 2007, the Tyne and Wear Integrated Transport Authority engaged a concessionaire known as TT2 (Tyne Tunnel 2) Limited to develop a new tunnel and associated toll plazas, interchanges and highway segments. Work is being executed under a 30-year design-build-finance-oper-ate-maintain concession financed through a public-private partnership. The conces-sionaire is also responsible for refurbishing and operating the existing A19 tunnel and operating the pedestrian and bicycle tunnel. When completed, the two vehicular tunnels will each have two lanes, with one tunnel handling northbound vehicles and the other carrying southbound traffic.

PB is one of three main designers to the contractor, Bouygues Travaux Publics. Under the direction of Project Manager Russell Bayliss, PB’s Newcastle office is also leading the approvals and consents and environmental coordination for the entire project. Other responsibilities include design of the southern approach tunnel and existing tunnel refurbishments.

Tunneling TechniquesSpace is at a premium, traffic is heavy and geological conditions are complex along the tunnel’s alignment, all of which influence design and construction. The section under the river will be a 360-meter- (1,181-foot-) long immersed tunnel—only the second immersed tunnel in England. The immersed tunnel will be linked at either end to deep cut-and-cover tunnel sections. The northern approach tunnel is 320 meters (1,050 feet) long and the southern approach tunnel is 823 meters (2,700 feet) long. The new northern approach tunnel crosses over the existing tunnel near the north bank with just 2.8 meters (9 feet) of clearance.

“Most of the approach tunnel sec-tions were constructed using cut-and-cover techniques and diaphragm walls,” Bayliss explains. “Trenches are excavated on each side of the tunnel alignment—as deep as 30 meters [98 feet]—and are temporarily supported by bentonite slurry. Steel reinforcement is then lowered into the trench and concrete is piped in to replace the benton-ite.” After the concrete cures, the tunnel area between the two diaphragm walls is excavated. Temporary props between the walls help them withstand the high ground pressures experienced during

deep excavation. When the concrete work on the floor and roof slabs is completed, the props are removed and the excavation is backfilled over the tunnel.

To avoid disrupting major utilities—including gas mains—two short stretches

were bored using umbrella vaults, steel arches and sprayed concrete lining, rather than an open excavation.

For the shallower section of tunnel farther to the south, the cut-and-cover sections were

constructed using pile and box techniques. Instead of dia-

phragm walls, concrete piles hold open the excavated area while a reinforced

Making it easier to cross the River Tyne in

northern England has been important to the

area’s development throughout history. Currently,

work is under way on The New Tyne Crossing,

a major tunnel project that will greatly enhance

mobility in the Newcastle region.

Cut-and-cover sections under the streets north and south of the River Tyne will connect to an immersed tunnel section beneath the river.

TUNNELING TO THE FUTURE INNEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

Russell Bayliss

16 • Notes

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18 • Notes

Construction work has to take place near residences and businesses under strict limitation to prevent nuisance, requiring extensive community consultation and a great deal of extra care.

concrete box is constructed inside. The final 130 meters (427 feet) of the tunnel approach is an open-cut box.

Construction began in March 2008; the approach tunnels have been excavated and backfilling is under way.

Keeping to the Schedule“Despite the range of tunneling techniques employed, the greatest challenges actually arise from construction in an urban environ-ment and all the required consenting, statu-tory and third-party approvals,” says Bayliss.

These include approvals from two planning authorities—one on either side of the river—in addition to the government environmental regulator, port authority and local departments. Managing approvals and consents has involved preparation of detailed documentation, plans and method statements for the various construction phases and, Bayliss notes, ongoing dialogue with the various entities.

Negotiation and coopera-tion have been essential in keeping construction on track. For example, the River Tyne is prized for its salmon and environmental

authorities constrained the schedule for dredging the immersed tunnel trench to minimize potential impacts to salmon migration. PB negotiated a slight relaxation in the six-week dredging window to avoid major delays to the project. Dredging was completed in December 2009 and the immersed tunnel segments were placed in February 2010.

PB also negotiated a simplified approval protocol for certain permits, as well as a phased approvals process, mean-ing that all approvals did not have to be secured before construction could begin. These efforts have been successful in avoiding approvals-related delays.

Rehabilitating the Old TunnelWhen The New Tyne Crossing is com-pleted—scheduled for February 2011—traffic will be diverted to the new tunnel and refurbishment of the old tunnel will begin. Overall completion is anticipated in early 2012.

Improvements to the existing tun-nel include installation of mechanical and electrical equipment to enhance operations

and safety. “This includes ITS [intelligent transportation systems], SCADA [supervisory control and data acquisition—a computer-ized monitoring system], new ventilation using jet fans, and an advanced fire sup-pression system, which will be linked to systems in the new tunnel,” Bayliss says. “One PB innovation is the addition of a separate escape passage—a design feature to be incorporated in both tunnels.”

Anchoring Renewal“Beyond easing traffic congestion, the tunnel is part of a major regeneration scheme to enhance the economic devel-opment of the area,” says Paul Littlefair, PB’s UK Director of Regeneration and Redevelopment Infrastructure and a native of Newcastle. “The tunnel will improve access to jobs and customers, and create favorable conditions for a public transport link. The enhanced mobility of goods and services will make the area more attrac-tive to companies and investors. And more than 2,000 people have worked on the project to date, providing immediate eco-nomic benefits.” n

A cutter suction dredger executed the dredging operation within strict limits, which protected migrating salmon and allowed sediment to be transported by pipeline to infill a dry dock 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the site.

Immersed TunnelsAn early application of immersed tunneling in the U.S. was the 1.6-kilometer (1-mile) vehicular tunnel between Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, completed in 1930. The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel has three sections: open approaches, shield tunneling from the approaches to the river and an immersed tunnel under the river. The immersed tunnel segments featured the first use of welded steel shells and internal steel lining in tunnel construction. It was also the first tunnel designed and built by PB.

Other immersed tunnels designed by PB included the Baytown Tunnel under the Houston ship

channel in the early 1950s; a number of tunnels in Virginia over a period of 30 years including the first Elizabeth River Tunnel (also known as the

Downtown Tunnel) connecting Norfolk and Portsmouth, opened in 1952; the Midtown Tunnel, completed in 1962; and the second Downtown Tunnel, opened in 1982. The standouts, however, were

the PB-designed bridge-tunnel crossings of Hampton Roads, Virginia, completed in 1957 and 1976, respectively. For those projects, immersed tunnels were built between two

artificial islands that connected to the main-land via bridges.

Another notable immersed tunnel was the Fort McHenry Tunnel, completed in 1985,

which was the widest immersed tunnel built at that time and the first to have double tubes, carrying a total of eight lanes of traffic, laid immediately side-by-side in a single trench under Baltimore Harbor.

An immersed tube tunnel under San Francisco Bay con-structed in the late 1960s as part of BART was the longest and deepest immersed tunnel built at that time. It was also the first immersed tunnel to use cathodic protection for

corrosion control, and to be designed for seismic conditions using a triaxial seismic joint between the tube and its land connection. The BART tunnel suffered no damage as a result of the devastating Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, and following the disaster was the only direct means of public transportation between Oakland and San Francisco.

Internationally, PB’s immersed tunnel experience includes Hong Kong’s first cross-harbor tunnel, linking Hong Kong island to Kowloon, for which PB in the early 1970s developed a replacement steel design for a tunnel originally designed as a concrete box. In the 1990s PB designed an immersed concrete tube for the Western Harbor Crossing, which was part of an effort to improve access to Hong Kong’s new international airport. n

THE HISTORY OF TUNNELING AT PB

Notes • 19

Detroit-Windsor Tunnel

Fort McHenry Tunnel, Baltimore

Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, Virginia

Paul Littlefair

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Notes • 21

In Boston, Massachusetts, a CSO project should entice more swimmers to Carson Beach in South Boston.

In Portland, Oregon, another CSO project is part of the renaissance of the Willamette River, the main waterway flow-ing through the city.

North Dorchester Bay CSO TunnelIn South Boston, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s (MWRA) North Dorchester Bay CSO Tunnel, a 5-meter (17-foot) diameter storage tunnel of rein-forced concrete segmental lining about 3.4 kilometers (2.1 miles) long, will result in the elimination of CSO discharges to North Dorchester Bay. In addition to tun-neling by a tunnel boring machine (TBM), there were more than 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) of new storm water piping installed to separate sanitary and storm water flows into the new storage tunnel.

Long Time ComingPB designed the tunnel as part of a joint venture team between 2004 and 2006 under the direction of Tim Smirnoff, Joe O’Carroll and Eldon Abbott. Construction began in late 2006 and was completed in 2008. Following completion of the pump station (designed by another firm) and an odor control facility, the tunnel will be put into service in 2011. PB assisted the MWRA during construction, reviewed shop drawing submittals and saw through the implementation of the project.

Challenges MetThere were challenges along the way, says Filomena Maybury, Deputy Project Manager, who worked under Project

Manager Eldon Abbott. One concern was

what might be in the path of the tunnel. “We were worried about running into abandoned seawalls, wells and timber pil-

ing supporting existing CSO

outfall pipes crossing the tunnel alignment. Extensive probe drilling and historical plan searches helped to set the tunnel profile to avoid these potential obstacles.”

Maybury recalls another challenge—during construction the fire department determined it was necessary to have a rescue shaft halfway along the proposed tunnel alignment in case of an emergency in the tunnel. Such a shaft was designed by PB and was built very quickly, with no impact to the overall construction schedule. The shaft will also be used as an additional maintenance shaft for the completed tunnel.

The CSO runs 5 to 11 meters (17 to 35 feet) under Day Boulevard, the main road accessing the parkland along Carson Beach in South Boston. So as not to interrupt traffic, a cut-and-cover tunnel was ruled out in favor of a bored tunnel. Geotechical staff found that a TBM would have to tunnel through mostly clay as well as sand and gravel. “This was rather chal-lenging—a TBM boring through different materials,” says Maybury. “Kudos go to our geotechnical team, who had accurately laid out profiles of the materials. This profile was instrumental in giving the contractor the necessary data to effectively plan his tunneling means and methods.”

Bill Levy, MWRA’s Project Manager

in charge of design, points out that this was the MWRA’s largest and most difficult CSO project. “There were challenges dur-ing design, but PB embraced them and worked with us to solve problems. We successfully implemented the project on an aggressive design schedule. This design package resulted in a very successful con-struction project that was completed ahead of schedule, on budget and with minimal change orders.”

Improved Quality of Life“Most important is the big picture,” says Maybury. “The project will result in a better quality of life for South Boston residents, especially for those who visit Carson Beach. This was a rewarding project in that the result is a cleaner beach. And with the TBM, there was less community disruption—it was out of sight, out of mind.”

East Side CSO TunnelThe East Side CSO Tunnel Project is the last major component of the City of Portland’s 20-year program to reduce combined sewer overflows into the waterways within the city. This is to be done by controlling over-flows from 13 outfalls on the east side of the Willamette River. PB was awarded the design for the project in 2003.

CLEANING WATERRESOURCES

On the East and West coasts of the U.S.,

two combined sewer overflow (CSO)

projects are under way to help clean up

significant bodies of water.

A tunnel boring machine (TBM) being prepared to bore the North Dorchester Bay CSO tunnel in Boston.

20 • Notes

The TBM breaks through at the end of its journey beneath the streets of South Boston.

Filomena Maybury

This project, now under con-struction and scheduled for comple-tion in 2011, will significantly improve water quality in the river, encouraging its use for recreational activities while promoting wildlife habitat.

Demanding Ground ConditionsThe tunnel will be 8.8 kilometers (5.5 miles) long with an internal diameter of 6.7 meters (22 feet). The project includes seven shafts approxi-mately 15 meters (50 feet) in diameter excavated to depths up to 55 meters (180 feet), approximately 3,700 meters (12,000 feet) of near-surface pipelines and 13 diversion structures.

The challenging tunneling condi-tions—beneath the groundwater table at depths up to 50 meters (160 feet) and primarily through a very dense gravel and cobble mixture held in a sand/silt matrix—have required the use of a slurry shield TBM. This type of TBM applies a positive pressure to the tunnel face by means of bentonite that penetrates the ground and provides face stability. Slurry shield tunneling was first used in the U.S. on the West Side CSO in Portland for a 4-meter (14-foot) diameter tunnel also designed by PB. “Its success on that project resulted in the tech-nology being applied to the

larger East Side CSO tunnel,” says Roy Cook, Project Manager for PB’s East Side CSO design team.

Furthermore, the tunnel passes seven major bridges crossing the Willamette. “One of the most challenging aspects of the design was selection of an alignment through the Sullivan Gulch area,” says Cook. This deep channel in-filled with soft sediments is the location for a major bridge, an interchange between the I-5 and I-84 freeways and the main West Coast north-south railroad tracks. Through this area, the tunnel had to avoid deep- piled foundations for the bridge and then snake through steel H-piles driven to support ramps for the interchange. Investigations showed that deviated piles came within a few feet of the tunnel

along its originally selected align-ment. As a

result, the tunnel was realigned to increase clearances.

“The contractor finished the 6 kilometer- [3.8 mile-] long TBM drive to the north in November 2009. The TBM was retrieved, put on a barge and floated up river to the main mining site. Once refurbished, it will go underground again to drive south,” explains Cook.

Dealing With 19th Century Industrialization In addition to the tunnel, near-surface pipelines are required as part of the sys-tem diverting flows from outfalls to the tunnel. One of these pipelines parallels the river and was excavated through artificial fill containing timber piles placed in the 19th century to build docks. Despite these poor conditions, the pipeline was micro-tunneled as a single drive—930 meters (3,055 feet) long—the longest microtunnel to date in the U.S.

Cook has found the project reward-ing. “It’s been a long process but never dull. From the construction of the deep slurry wall shafts to the slurry shield tunneling to the

microtunneled pipelines and their associated works, there is always something challenging going on.” n

In Portland, a TBM was delivered to the launch site via barge on the Willamette River.

Water Conveyance TunnelsWater conveyance tunnels for which PB has performed design or con-struction services include:• The 15-kilometer (9-mile) Boston Harbor outfall and its 55 state-of-

the-art diffusers (completed in 2000), which was part of the effort to clean up Boston Harbor;

• The recently completed Singapore Deep Tunnel Sewerage System, a project that replaced that country’s entire wastewater treatment system, including 48 kilometers (30 miles) of tunnels; and

• The design of water conveyance tunnels of the Croton water treatment plant in the Bronx, New York, and the ongoing rehabilitation of 50 kilome-ters (31 miles) of the New Croton Aqueduct of the New York City water supply system, which was built in 1885, the year PB was founded. n

THE HISTORY OF TUNNELING AT PB

In progress: build out of the Portland East Side CSO lower vortex genera-tor at Alder Street.

The Portland CSO’s TBM being retrieved from below ground.

Singapore Deep Tunnel

Sewerage System

Boston Harbor Outfall Notes • 23

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Construction on the Port of Miami Tunnel project is expected to begin in May 2010.

As owner’s representative since 2003, PB has assisted FDOT in the development of a program to link the Port of Miami—the cruise capital of the world and cargo gate-way of the Americas—with I-95 and I-395 to alleviate congestion on local Miami streets and enable the port to remain competitive. Under the direction of Project Manager Eldon Abbott and Deputy Project Manager Peter Donahue, PB’s efforts have included project management, civil and structural concept design, tunnel engineering, cost estimating and scheduling, and preparation of public-private partnership (PPP) procurement docu-ments. The firm also supported FDOT during the contract negotiation process.

Currently, the only route to and from the Port of Miami, located on the 210-hectare (518-acre) Dodge Island between Miami and Miami Beach, is the Port Boulevard Bridge. Motorists must navigate city streets between the interstates and the bridge, and regular traffic backups slow commerce, deter tourism and negatively impact pedestrian traffic and local air quality. The solution: Reroute port-related traffic, particularly trucks and buses, by providing a direct connection to the Port of Miami via Florida’s first major tunnel.

Long-Haul ProcurementIn 2006, the project was advanced through a public-private partnership. Following the request for proposal, the MAT (Miami Access Tunnel) consortium was selected as concessionaire in February 2008. Protracted contract negotiations and the subsequent pullout in December 2008 of the conces-sionaire’s original 90 percent equity partner delayed financial close until October 2009.

The PPP includes FDOT, Miami-Dade County, the City of Miami, the Federal Highway Administration and MAT. Under the PPP contract, MAT will provide finance, design, build, operate and maintain ser-vices over a 35-year period—five years for design and construction at a cost of $607 million and 30 years for operation and maintenance with annual payments based on performance standards.

Mobility EnhancementsIn addition to twin-bore tunnels between Watson and Dodge islands, project com-

ponents include Port of Miami roadway connections and the widening of the MacArthur Causeway to accommodate the associated growth in traffic. These enhancements will provide a vital dedi-cated route to cruise and cargo ships.

Tunnel construction will be especially challenging due to Florida’s soft, perme-able ground conditions. An earth pressure balance tunnel boring machine (TBM), with a cutterhead measuring 12.8 meters (42 feet) in diameter, is being fabricated to traverse the sand and limestone. Precast tunnel segments will be placed as the TBM progresses. Each tube, 1.2 kilome-ters (0.75 miles) in length and 13 meters (41 feet) in diameter, will carry two lanes of traffic at depths up to 37 meters (120 feet) below the navigational channel in Biscayne Bay.

“Both tubes will be driven from a single launching pit on Watson Island so only one area will be required for tunnel muck outside the portals,” says Donahue. “When completed, this will be the larg-est soft-ground bored tunnel in the U.S.” Each bore is expected to take six months to complete.

The MacArthur Causeway will be expanded from three to four lanes in each direction, and acceleration and decelera-tion lanes for trucks and buses using the tunnel will enhance safety. The port’s roadway system will feature three overlap-ping bridges to provide improved access for both cargo and cruise traffic entering and exiting specific areas of Dodge Island.

En Route to Smoother Sailing“PB will be reviewing all of the conces-sionaire’s technical and administrative submittals for conformance with good engineering practice and contract terms,” says Donahue. “In addition to our role as owner’s representative for permitting, design and technical assessment, recently we were tasked with construction engi-neering and inspection [CE&I] services.”

PB’s Richard Lear and Richard Monahan are currently managing the design review process. Following final design, permitting and utility relocation in 2010, upcoming construction tasks include excavation for tunnel tubes and port roadways and bridges in 2011, work on depressed roadway sections and approach-es in 2012, and tunnel finishes and support facilities efforts in 2013. PB’s Felix Vergara will manage the CE&I services.

With project completion scheduled for April 2014, the result will be an infra-structure network that allows for smooth sailing to and from the Port of Miami as well as an improved downtown and an enhanced environ-ment for residents and tourists alike. n

IMPROVING PORT ACCESS IN MIAMI

The Florida Department of Transportation

(FDOT) and its partners have gone to great

lengths and will soon be going to great

depths to improve access to and from the

Port of Miami.

The Port of Miami is Florida’s main container port and accommodates 4.1 million cruise ship passengers annually.

24 • Notes Peter Donahue

Currently, the only way to reach the Port of Miami is via the Port Boulevard Bridge. A tunnel from Watson Island to Dodge Island will offer an alternative way to reach the port.

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Ventilation InnovationSince PB’s tunnel ventilation team was created more than 35 years ago, PB has been responsible for scores of major ven-tilation design breakthroughs that have slashed costs while providing a superior environment for rail and road tunnel users. Among its accomplishments is the Subway Environment Simulation (SES) computer program, created in the 1970s, that contin-ues to prove itself today in the design of safe, cost-efficient tunnel ventilation sys-tems. PB’s tunnel ventilation team currently numbers approximately 40 people.

The team also wrote the Subway Environmental Design Handbook, a technical guide for subway ventilation design. In the 1990s the team developed SOLVENT, a three-dimensional computa-tional fluid dynamics (CFD) fire-ventilation road tunnel simulation program validated by the Memorial Tunnel Fire Ventilation Test Program in West Virginia.

Members of the team have been responsible for scores of major subway and tunnel ventilation designs, including those of Atlanta’s MARTA rapid transit system; the Hong Kong subway; the Canadian Pacific Railway’s Mount Macdonald/Rogers Pass tunnel, which is the longest railroad tunnel in the Western Hemisphere; as well as a proof check of the English Channel Tunnel.

How has tunnel ventilation changed since the early 1970s? “The ability to work things out precisely on the computer has allowed us to implement all kinds of inno-vations that were too risky before,” says team founder Bill Kennedy. “The first thing we realized was that tunnel ventilation could be done a lot less expensively. With the SES and CFD, you can pinpoint exactly where to place ventilation shafts and how many cubic meters per minute the fans have to move.”

On the MARTA project, PB was able to reduce the number of ventilation shafts by a third. Since each shaft cost $500,000 to $1 million in those days, the savings was considerable. The total cost reduction for MARTA was about 5 percent.

In the mid-1980s, PB designed the first

so-called “screen doors” for the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit. Screen doors are a sec-ond set of subway doors on the train plat-form that prevent heat in the tunnel from warming the station platforms. This further reduced air conditioning costs as well as platform air velocities when trains arrived and departed.

Light at the End of the TunnelLighting is another area where major changes are occurring, according to Senior Supervising Engineer Paul Lutkevich. Advances in LED, high-intensity discharge and fluorescent technologies have improved efficiency and reduced energy use.

But perhaps more dramatic was the discovery about a decade ago of an addi-tional photo receptor in the human eye, indicating that the color of light plays a significant role in the physical response of the eye and therefore how well we see. “This discovery turned everything upside down in this field,” says Lutkevich. “We always knew that what you see is affected by the difference in brightness between an object and its background. Now we’re experimenting with the additive effects of color contrast from the use of wide-spectrum lighting sources and using the light source to control pupil size and, ulti-mately, visibility.”

For example, in the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel for the Maryland Transportation Authority, PB replaced monochromatic low-pressure sodium lamps with easy-on-the-eyes induction lamps, a technology similar to fluorescent that uses external coils to generate electromagnetic fields in order to stimulate phosphors in the lamp. Not only are induction lamps broad spectrum, but they have an operating life that is five times that of a traditional fluorescent light.

Daylighting TunnelsAnother change has been the incorpora-tion of daylight in tunnel lighting. “In the past, a lot of money was spent on lighting the entrance to the tunnel, where a per-son’s eyes have to adjust from daylight to a black hole,” says Lutkevich. PB is incor-

porating the daylight that penetrates the tunnel into experimental lighting designs.

In a tunnel project for the Arizona Department of Transportation, PB was able to measure daylight readings and val-idate computer modeling techniques that predicted daylighting levels for various sky and weather conditions. The result of this analysis and modeling, according to Lutkevich, is that it likely will be possible to exclude all artificial tunnel lighting from the entrance and exit portals, reduc-ing the initial and operating costs of light-ing dramatically.

PB has also tested LED installations in small sections of the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore and the Holland Tunnel in New York City, and is arrang-ing mock-ups for several tunnels in Washington state.

LEDs can also provide the wide spec-trum source that PB is looking for. “We have the research in color contrast and eye response and are looking to direct LED development to conform to those models.”

Next in tunnel lighting? “We’re look-ing at better ways to exploit daylight in the tunnel,” says Lutkevich, “experimenting with modifications in the tunnel structure to direct more daylight inside and extend that penetration with elements similar to light shelves or with artificial light guides that have an optical film to bounce light down a long tube. The ideal result would be the use of daylight to light the entire tunnel. Instead of the problem, daylight may become the solution.” n

TUNNEL INNOVATIONS:LIGHT AND AIR

With a proven track record of success in

complex tunnel design and construction,

PB has harnessed its expertise to become a

global leader in tunnel ventilation and lighting.

The Upper Narrows Tunnel in southern Colorado uses a counterbeam lighting system to increase visibility at reduced energy.

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The line—with two underground stations and six at grade—offers convenient travel to downtown Los Angeles and also makes East Los Angeles easier to reach from out-side the area.

PB, as the lead member of the Eastside LRT Partners joint venture, provided planning, design and engi-neering services during construction for the Eastside Extension of the Los Angeles Metro Gold Line. A project of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) that was many years in the making, the exten-sion opened on November 15, 2009. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called the project “a model for the nation.” PB brought several innovations to the project, including the use of tunneling equipment that produced virtually no ground settlement during construction.

An estimated 13,000 riders used the system on weekdays by the close of 2009, with 23,000 riders projected by 2020.

“The Eastside Corridor has among the highest residential densities and larg-est transit-dependent populations in Los Angeles,” explains Bob Bramen, who served as PB’s Principal-in-Charge and JV Project Director of Eastside LRT Partners. “With this extension of Metro, the client has done a great service to users in the Eastside neighborhood and beyond.”

Project DetailsThe Eastside light rail is a 10-kilometer (6-mile), eight-station extension of the

Metro Gold Line and runs between Union

Station in downtown Los Angeles and East Los Angeles. The alignment is primarily at-grade, with a midsection tunnel, and a viaduct

section over the U.S. 101 free-

way. The original Metro Gold Line runs north and then east from Union Station for 21.7 kilometers (13.5 miles), ending at the Sierra Madre Villa station in Pasadena.

Initially the extension was envisioned as a completely underground system but that program was later suspended because it was not financially feasible. Heading back to the drawing board, PB and the client team identified an alternative plan that combined a system built at grade for 6.7 kilometers (4.2 miles) and under-ground for 2.9 kilometers (1.8 miles). The subway solution was deemed most appro-priate for the portion of the line running through Boyle Heights, an older neighbor-hood that has many narrow streets.

Final environmental studies pre-pared under PB’s lead were approved in February 2002; final design began in October 2002 and construction started in July 2004. The twin tunnels under the Boyle Heights district were completed in December 2007.

The new stations, many of which were designed by PB architects Aziz Kohan and Larry Johanson and their joint venture colleagues, were uniquely planned to fit the context of the neighbor-hoods where they are located.

Public Involvement and Process InnovationsAn extensive public involvement program was key to the project’s success. “The com-munity was critical in the decision-making process, evaluating a variety of alternatives with PB and the owner,” says Bramen.

PB introduced a number of innova-tions to the process that further mini-mized impact to the community, says

Amanda Elioff,

PB Lead Tunnel Engineer. PB recom-mended the use of pressurized-face tunnel boring machines (TBMs) to reduce settle-ment of the ground above the tunnels. In fact, the tunnels were completed with vir-tually no settlement, minimal disruption to the community and no impact to existing infrastructure or buildings—benefits that led Metro to consider the use of TBMs for future projects.

“Another major innovative element employed in this project was the use of double-gasketed precast concrete segmen-tal tunnel liners—versus two-pass tunnel liners—to contain gas and water seep-age,” says Jim Monsees, PB’s Technical Director for Tunneling. “The decision to use these liners saved considerable time and expense when compared to systems used in the past.”

Elioff also attributes the job’s suc-cess to the integrated project management team. “The owner, engineer, contractor and construction manager were all located in field offices on the site,” she says.

As always, safety was a top prior-ity. The project posted a perfect safety record—more than 4 million construction hours without a lost-time work injury.

Dennis Mori, Metro Executive Officer of Project Management, praised PB for “assisting Metro in completing the project ahead of schedule and within budget.” n

LIGHT RAIL LINE A BOON TO EAST LOS ANGELES

Residents and business owners alike in

East Los Angeles are thrilled about the

recent completion of a long-awaited light

rail project that links them to Union Station

in downtown Los Angeles and several

vibrant neighborhoods in between.

PB contributed to the design of the Maravilla Station, as well as several other stations, on the Eastside Extension of the Los Angeles Metro Gold Line. 28 • Notes

Public officials celebrate the opening of the Eastside Extension (front row, left to right): L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, former L.A. County Supervisor Yvonne Burke, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina, U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and former Metro CEO Roger Snoble.

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Ground ImprovementSometimes, before tunnels can be dug, or while they are being excavated, the ground through which they pass must be stabilized or otherwise improved to allow for smooth tunneling with minimal impact on adjacent structures and utilities. Over the past three decades, PB has developed a number of ground improvement techniques that have facilitated tunneling on projects including the following: • Chemical grouting allowed tunneling on the Lexington Market section

of the Baltimore Metro at about 2 meters (7 feet) beneath a 19th century brick-lined tunnel.

• Soil nailing made possible the construction of a tunnel portal for the West Side light rail line in Portland, Oregon, at a site susceptible to landslides.

• Ground freezing allowed tunneling of Cleveland’s Heights Hilltop Interceptor through an active railroad embankment.

• A combination of jet grouting and micro piles expedited construction of MARTA tunnels under Interstate Highway I-285 in Atlanta.

• Jet grouting and fracture grouting at the 63rd Street Queens Connector in New York City allowed for the tunnel excavation beneath an existing tunnel and elevated railway.

• Geomembrane incorporated within the tunnel lining design facilitated safe tunneling through petroleum-saturated ground along the Los Angeles Metro Red Line.

• Ground freezing of soil under active railroad tracks at Boston’s South Station allowed contractors on the Central Artery/Tunnel project to jack huge vehicular tunnels through unstable soil without interrupting rail traffic above. n

THE HISTORY OF TUNNELING AT PB

WRITING THE BOOKON TUNNELING

During more than a century of practice, PB

has produced books, monographs, reference

manuals and research papers that have

advanced the state of the art in tunneling.

Sunghoon Choi

Henry Russell

Nagen Loganathan

Joe O’Carroll

David Smith

Joe Wang

Among publications written by PB engineers is the Tunnel Engineering Handbook, a comprehensive review of the state of the art in the design, construction and rehabilitation of tunnels; “Design Manual for Tunnels and Shafts in Rock,” prepared for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and the recently completed “Manual for Design and Construction of Road Tunnels,” for the Federal Highway Administration which will soon be adopted as a national standard of practice by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).

PB also fosters innovation through its William Barclay Parsons Fellowship, which has awarded a number of fellowships to support research into tunneling. Monographs by Parsons Fellows include the following and are available through PB’s Website (www.pbworld.com/library/fellowship/).• The Inspection and Rehabilitation of Transit Tunnels

(1987) by Henry A. Russell• Seismic Design of Tunnels: A Simple State-of-the-Art Design

Approach (1991) by Joe Wang• A Guide to Planning, Construction and Supervision of Earth

Pressure Balance TBM Tunneling (2002) by Joe O’Carroll• Tunnel Stability Under Explosion (2003) by Sunghoon Choi• Fiber-Reinforced Concrete for Precast Tunnel Structures (2007) by David Smith • An Innovative Method to Assess the Risk to Adjacent Structures Associated with Urban

Tunneling (2009) by Nagen Loganathan n

Los Angeles Metro Red Line

63rd Street Connector, New York City

Central Artery/Tunnel,Boston

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In all, China is building a 10,000-kilometer (6,200-mile) network of dedicated passen-ger rail within a five-year period to connect the capitals of most of its 27 provinces. On track for completion by 2013, the program includes 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) of high-speed rail, the largest high-speed rail network in the world.

PB was part of a joint venture con-sortium chosen by China’s Ministry of Railways (MOR) to build the high-speed Zheng-Xi PDL, which includes some 38 tunnels, the longest at 8.5 kilometers (5.3 miles); the consortium included the MOR’s Third Survey and Design Institute and DB International GmbH of Germany.

Construction on the US$ 5.2 billion project started in July 2005. Work was com-pleted on a highly accelerated schedule, with an on-time opening in February 2010.

PB’s responsibilities covered project management and systems assurance coun-sel, safety and risk management expertise, construction supervision support and technology transfer to MOR staff through formal classroom instruction and on-the-job training. The firm brought a wide range of expertise to the project, but one of its greatest contributions was to help keep the effort on schedule by bringing practical solutions to logistical challenges.

Millions to Benefit From ProjectThe high-speed trains of the Zheng-Xi PDL travel at speeds of up to 350 kilometers (217 miles) per hour on an alignment that has 77 kilometers (48 miles) of tunnels, 156 kilometers (97 miles) of earthworks and 225 kilometers (140 miles) of bridges and viaducts. The Zheng-Xi PDL runs paral-

lel to the Yellow River, one of China’s great waterways.

“Millions of people will be posi-tively affected by this project. The two

major cities it con-nects each has about 9

million residents, and a

number of intermediate cities have between 2 and 5 million,” says PB’s Mike Gillam, Senior Project Manager. “Previous travel time between Zhengzhou and Xi’an was up to 11 hours, depending on the class of service. The travel time on the new line reduces that trip to just over two hours, so the productiv-ity improvement is enormous.”

Challenges and AchievementsSeveral ground conditions were encoun-tered during tunnel construction includ-ing competent rock, weathered limestone rock and both hard and soft sedimentary material. Gillam notes that modern tunnel boring machines were not used on the project because of their capital cost and also because of the challenging mountain-ous terrain; transporting the huge machines to their needed work locations and moving them after a tunnel bore was completed would have been quite difficult. As a result, he says, “Much of the excavation work was done by human labor, sometimes assisted with compressed air-driven excavators.” Tunnels were constructed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Early in the project, PB developed a comprehensive master program with a criti-cal path for the Zheng-Xi PDL. Working

closely with its joint venture partners and the client, PB also divided the design into different stages and levels of completion needed for the individual civil works ele-ments, making it easier for the designers to supply specific plans at appropriate stages of the project.

In early 2007, as part of PB’s schedul-ing activities, the firm projected extensive delays on the two longest tunnels (each 8 kilometers/5 miles) under construction by local contractors.

The PB team developed a tunnel production improvement plan and most of its recommendations were adopted by the contractors, resulting in on-schedule completion.

In addition to the Zheng-Xi PDL, PB provided construction supervision services to the Chinese government on the construction of the Shi-Tai PDL, a high-speed line completed on January 1, 2009. Located farther north, the 160-kilometer (100-mile) line runs between Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province, and Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi Province. Roughly 72 kilometers (45 miles) of the alignment are tunnels and include the 28-kilometer (17-mile) Taihangshan Tunnel, one of the longest in Asia. n

KEEPING CHINA’S HIGH-SPEED RAIL PROGRAM ON TRACK

China is undertaking an ambitious rail program in a

move to modernize its transportation network. The

458-kilometer (285-mile) Zheng-Xi Passenger Dedicated

Line (PDL), which runs from Zhengzhou to Xi’an, is part

of the country’s plan to construct up to 11 high-speed

rail lines that will link its major urban centers. The line

opened in February 2010.

Travel time from Zhengzhou to Xi’an is now just over two hours—previously this journey took 11 hours.

32 • NotesMike Gillam

Mountainous terrain posed logistical challenges that were overcome with careful planning.

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CYpRus adds poWeR at vasiLikosThere is a growing demand for electrical power in Cyprus, the third largest island in the Mediterranean and a popular tourist destination. To keep pace with a steady rise in tourism, and to meet the needs of its growing

population, Cyprus is investing in infrastructure improvements that deliver reliable power—and more of it—to visitors and resi-dents alike. The need for modern and efficient power technology is especially crucial considering that many of the existing generating units are nearing the end of their design life and are challenged by increasingly tightening European

Union emissions directives. PB was owner’s engineer

on the Phase III development of the Vasilikos Power Station which was put into initial operation in July 2009 and taken over by the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) on November 11, 2009.

“Cyprus has been relying on heavy fuel oil and diesel oil to produce electricity because there is currently no availability of gas on the island,” says Mark Wilson, PB’s Senior Project Manager, Power Generation.

The combined-cycle gas turbine power plant is initially being fired on distillate fuel oil but will switch to gas-fired operation when liquefied natural gas becomes available on Cyprus several years from now.

“This technology offers cleaner energy than the existing power plants and is far more efficient,” says Wilson.

PB also served as owner’s engineer on the Phase II devel-opment at Vasilikos Power Station, operational since 2005.

FiRst RiNg Road takes shape iN kuWaitWork continues on the First Ring Road to complete a vital route serving downtown Kuwait City. The southern section of the road has been operational for a decade; and during the next sev-eral years, the northern section will open to traffic in three phas-es. “Completion of the first phase in 2011 will allow the bulk of the traffic to avoid the very heav-

ily congested Jahra Roundabout by using new depressed road-ways and flyovers to access the business district,” says Project Director Anas Kassem who, since 2003, has led PB in providing design, preparation of contract documents and tender review. Currently PB is providing con-struction supervision services on the complex 2.8-kilometer (1.7-mile) stretch of highway surrounding the Jahra Gate inter-section. The work is being per-formed in association with local partner Gulf Consult for Kuwait’s Ministry of Public Works.

As construction proceeds on a complicated mix of struc-tures, including at-grade road, flyovers, underpasses, seven bridges, two storm water pump stations and a storm water sea outfall, traffic mitigation is key. “This is a densely settled area and the roadway threads its way between some of Kuwait’s newest high-rise real estate and some of its most historic, protected buildings,” says Keith Horsfield, Resident Engineer. “We’ve developed four major traffic diversions to facilitate traf-fic flow, and we’re maintaining an extensive public awareness campaign to help residents and property owners negotiate local roads during construction.”

Two additional packages have been tendered to round out the northern section and close the 15-kilometer (9-mile) loop by 2016. “Ultimately, the First Ring Road will make a major contribu-tion to streamlining traffic in and around Kuwait City,” says Kassem.

CLeaNiNg up iN RomaNiaRomania is one step closer to better environmental quality thanks to a European Union (EU)-funded project that has advised the Romanian govern-ment on its national contaminat-ed land strategy. As part of this project, PB staff led and complet-ed a year-long program work-ing with the Bucharest-based Institute for Studies and Power Engineering to help formulate a plan to remediate the coun-try’s estimated 350,000 hectares (865,000 acres) of land polluted by landfill, mining, heavy indus-try and agricultural chemicals.

“The environmental situation in Romania is dire,” says Project Manager Cristina Pellegrino. “The country has thousands of abandoned contam-inated areas. This is exacerbated by the fact that currently only a fraction of waste in Romania is reused or recycled,” she says, adding that “the most severe blow to soil quality is related to an increasingly large number of inappropriate landfills.”

After reviewing details of the country’s 1,750 documented historically polluted sites, the PB team assessed and overhauled Romania’s management of con-

taminated land, consolidating regulatory structures at a local, regional and national level. The result is an action plan for reha-bilitation of historically contami-nated sites that lays the ground-work for three pilot EU Structural Fund applications. “This is likely to unlock a multimillion-euro rehabilitation program in the country,” says Pellegrino.

NeW YoRk’s RFk BRidge updated aNd upgRadedThe largest renovation and rehabilitation project to date on the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, formerly called the Triborough Bridge, is nearly complete. The RFK Bridge is a system of three bridges totaling 23 kilometers (14 miles) of roadways connect-ing Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx as well as Randall’s and Wards islands, which are located in the East River between Manhattan and Queens. Originally completed in 1936, it is now one of the city’s busiest motorways.

A project to rehabilitate the viaduct and suspension spans is complete. PB in joint venture was part of the proj-ect team providing the owner,

MTA-Bridges and Tunnels, with construction engineering and inspection services.

The project’s main objec-tive was the deck replacement and widening of the Randall’s and Wards islands viaducts, according to PB’s Sam Scozzari, Resident Engineer for the proj-ect. The project also included replacement of more than 400 bridge bearings; closing of bridge drainage; upgraded illu-mination; $42 million in coatings of the viaduct and suspension spans; as well as repairs to the concrete piers and steel spans, anchorages and viaducts.

To provide easier access to Randall’s Island, which is being revitalized by the city, a new

ramp has been constructed. Good relationships with contractors and city agencies enabled a success-ful addition of this ramp, done so well, Scozzari notes, that the new ramp perfectly matches the origi-nal bridge. This ramp is sched-uled to open in mid-2010. n

Noteson

Projects

A view from the top of the RFK Bridge East River suspension span, facing Wards Island.

Phase III of the Vasilikos Power Station in Cyprus opened in late 2009.

First Ring Road, Kuwait City

36 • Notes

Chairman of the Board of PB’s Americas transportation com-pany before retiring in 1990.

“Tom Kuesel was one of the great PB engineers of the last half-century,” said George J. Pierson, PB’s Chief Executive Officer. “He made significant con-tributions to bridges and tunnels that are well-known to millions.”

Kuesel co-edited, with PB’s John O. Bickel, the Tunnel Engineering Handbook, pub-lished in 1982 and still a stan-dard reference for design and construction. He also published more than 60 technical articles on tunnels, structures and con-tracting practices.

Kuesel graduated from Yale University in 1946 with a degree in civil engineering at the age of 19 and earned a master’s degree in civil engineer-ing the following year. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1977. He was an honorary member of the American Underground Construction Association. He received the Golden Beaver Award in Engineering in 1989 from The Beavers, the West Coast heavy construction honor-ary association.

iN memoRiam: BoB WaRshaW Robert Warshaw—an engineer who radiated enthusiasm for his profession and taught and inspired many—died on January 14, 2010, at the age of 82. Having joined PB in 1952 and retiring in 2008, Warshaw was the com-pany’s longest-serving employee, with a tenure of 56 years.

One of his many accom-plishments was the seismic joint he invented for the Bay Area Rapid Transit tunnel across San Francisco Bay that withstood the magnitude 7.1 Loma Prieta earth-quake in 1989. His other projects included the I-787 Interchange in Albany; the I-84/I-87 Interchange in Newburgh, New York; and various assignments on the Long Island Expressway. He was manager of the firm’s New York highway department from 1968 to 1972.

In 2004, Warshaw was named Civil Engineer of the Year by the Metropolitan Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Grateful to his own men-tors at PB, Warshaw became a dedicated mentor himself. He also taught evening courses in structural theory at Polytechnic University, from which he received his master of civil engi-neering degree.

“Bob personified the PB val-ues of technical excellence, col-legiality and putting clients first,” says George J. Pierson, PB’s Chief Executive Officer. “He truly was one of the great engineers of PB and he is sorely missed.”

emeRgiNg pRoFessioNaLs shoW FoRWaRd thiNkiNgPB’s Emerging Professionals (EP) Paper Competition gives employees with 10 or fewer years of experience the opportu-nity to step outside their company roles to voice their opinions and share their ideas.

The winner in the Technical Paper category was Jennifer Love, a Planner in the Tempe office, whose paper, “Improving Pedestrian Thermal Comfort through Urban Design,” highlights her analysis of urban design elements in Phoenix. “My analysis of temperatures in various areas of Phoenix revealed that a drop of just a few degrees makes places more attractive and therefore more likely to be patronized by resi-dents and tourists.”

The World Paper serves as a channel for emerging profes-sionals to express their ideas to the firm’s leadership team on a topic influencing PB’s current operations and strategic success. Francesca Maier of Nashville won for her paper, “Securing PB’s Future with Virtual Design and Construction (VDC).” Maier argues that VDC is a novel approach to project delivery that implements the information con-tained in multidisciplinary, 3-D design models; optimizes the design, construction and opera-tion of a facility; and manages cost and schedule risks. n

WBp FeLLoW aNd FiNaList taCkLe timeLY topiCsHigh-speed rail and the effects of explosions on dams and levees are the topics of research undertaken through PB’s William Barclay Parsons Fellowship.

Frank Banko, a Senior Engineering Manager in the Newark, New Jersey, office, is the William Barclay Parsons Fellow for 2010 for his proposal, “Pioneering the Application of High Speed Rail Express Trainsets in the United States.” Banko will look to Europe and Asia, where high-speed rail is a proven technology. “I’ll study best practices in France, Germany and Japan, where rail cars are designed and manufac-tured, to see how they design, produce and operate high speed rail trainsets.” Knowledge that Banko acquires will help develop high-speed rail trainset performance specifications, and will support the development of regulations in the U.S.

James Parkes, a Lead Geotechnical Engineer in Baltimore, is the Parsons Fellowship finalist for his pro-

posal, “Impacts of Explosions on Dams and Levees.”

“It has been recognized in the industry that there exists a possibility for a malicious event such as an attack on a high-haz-ard dam or levee,” says Parkes. “A clear and cost-effective meth-od for analyzing the effects of explosions on dams and levees must be developed.”

heNRY L. miCheL FeLLoWs studY sustaiNaBiLitYThe vulnerability of oil sup-plies and self-sustaining hous-ing are subjects undertaken through PB’s Henry L. Michel Fellowship, which is awarded annually to promote research related to sustainability.

Jonathan Sykes, of PB’s London office, was named the 2010 Henry L. Michel Fellow for his “Proposal for Oil Vulnerability Audits.” Sykes spe-cializes in sustainability and car-bon management. He will study how vulnerable organizations are to rising oil prices.

“If there is a way to provide a better understanding of the risks early on, then transitional strategies could be developed to

help organizations reduce their vulnerability,” says Sykes.

The finalist for the Michel Fellowship was Andrew Hodgkinson, Melbourne, Australia, for his “Self Sustaining Structures.” Hodgkinson, National Technical Executive, Sustainable Production and Resource Efficiency, Australia, formed and led a new design team in PB’s Melbourne office called Self Sustaining Structures. The team’s first project was to design compact, comfortable and portable temporary living quarters for remote operations, called Desert Flower, which relies only on the rain and sun-shine that falls on its roof for water, heat and power.

iN memoRiam: thomas R. kueseLThomas R. Kuesel, a renowned bridge and tunnel engineer who was responsible for the design of 130 bridge projects and 140 tunnels during a 43-year career with PB, died on February 17, 2010, at the age of 83. He spent his entire career at PB, starting as a junior bridge engineer in 1947. He was named partner in 1968 and in 1984 became

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